Crucial Course Evaluations

As the school year winds down, students at St. Lawrence University find themselves completing course evaluations in classes. This process is repeated for every class each semester. Course evaluations are significant for improving and maintaining academic courses and lessons from professors.  

Course evaluations can directly affect professors’ careers. Professor and Dr. Amanda Oldacre is up for her tenure and shares how these evaluations play into the process. “So when we go up for tenure and promotion or promotion from associate to professor, the Professional Standards Committee, which is a committee of colleagues at the university, look through several different aspects of your teaching,” she says. One of these aspects is course evaluations.  

Because of the standards, it is important for professors to implement feedback received. Oldacre explains how she uses course evals in her classes, “In particular for my classes, I take student feedback, especially with specific examples on what worked well for them and what didn’t work for them, and try to like tweak my courses as time goes on. So I’ve used course evaluations to make classes better throughout my career here.” However, this is a best-case scenario, as not all professors utilize the feedback they are given.  

Thelmo, a student-run group that advocates for faculty, helps in the course evaluation process. Allee Mack ’24, delegate to the board of trustees, explains her frustration about the lack of action around course evaluations, “Sometimes you’ll write things about a professor and how you weren’t happy with them, and that doesn’t really go anywhere, so I don’t really know how important they are I guess.”   

Mack also gives a possible idea to improve course evals: “I also think that there should be like mid-semester ones because if your professor or your course is going terribly, they can’t help you at the end of the year,” she said While this is a valid point, the accumulation of feedback over time is also crucial to professors, not just changes that need to be made immediately.  

First-year Ella Narins agrees with the importance of consistent critiquing, “I think over time if they get enough feedback, then it might be helpful, but I think some teachers just have teaching styles that they don’t really change, but it might help,” she said. While she acknowledges course evals may not be useful in every scenario, Narins still realizes the significance of these student evaluations in relation to relevancy, “I think it’s important for teachers to get student feedback, I mean they get evaluated by other teachers too, but like, student feedback means a lot more cause the students are the ones coming to class every day and taking the class,” she notes.  

Overall, it is critical to give professors accumulated feedback so they can better their teaching methods and courses. As a very small price to pay as students, Narins explains why course evals are important to her, “I enjoy giving teachers that I really like feedback so they continue to do good and teachers that I don’t like feedback so they can improve the course for future students and hopefully work on their teaching style,” she said. Regardless of whether they are immediately implied or not, course evaluations are an important piece in improving our university.