At the same moment the Harvard Faculty gave approval to the digitization project that Robert and I wrote about today, it also made mandatory professor evaluations, which are compiled in a book called the ‘Q’ (it used to be called CUE — for Committee on Undergraduate Education — but is now simply one letter, presumably because it’s “cooler” that way).

Here’s an amusing colloquy from The Crimson’s article on the subject:

After several Faculty members spoke in favor of the reforms, government professor Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 drew a link between the course evaluation process and grade inflation.
“Studies have shown, I say solemnly, that the young faculty, particularly, who are subjected to course evaluations, tend to raise the grades of their courses to avoid untoward comment,” Mansfield said.
[…] Mansfield added that he thought the evaluations “subjected the wise to the judgment and scrutiny of the unwise.”
German Literature Professor Judith L. Ryan, the last to speak before the issue went to a vote, addressed Mansfield’s objection, arguing that students are qualified to constructively assess their teachers.
“I think it would be a sad day when I or anyone else considers me wise, because I as a professor am here to learn…and so I don’t see such a dramatic difference between me and the students who are learning,” Ryan said, adding that she had changed courses in the past in response to suggestions offered in the evaluations.
For his part, Mansfield stuck by his statement after the meeting.
“I do think that the professors are wiser than the students,” he said. “Or else the students would be on the Faculty.”

I agree with Mansfield on principle, and certainly in sentiment as well considering the motivations and content of Judith Ryan’s rebuttal. (It bears saying that Mansfield’s lectures on political philosophy are regarded as some of the best at Harvard). Student evaluation of their teachers really is, for the most part, a counterproductive enterprise. Not only does it have the flaws Mansfield notes, it also allows students to breeze through the Q Guide and pick gut courses by the assessment of its “difficulty” — on a 1 to 5 scale — made by its former students. And, yes, a sad number of Harvard students pick their “Core” (i.e. general education) courses this way. That, and student evaluation only gives weight to the flawed notion that somehow teaching a course is primarily a “learning experience” or, as another professor’s recent exhortation to students has it — *cringe* — a “dialogue.”