Students assess instructors
 through evaluations
By Joey Young
Staff Writer

Americans comment everyday on how our president is doing in the form of an evaluation. If it’s the war on terror, tax cuts, Medicare, or even his personal life, evaluations of the president’s job are often done.

The comments heard by the voters can essentially make changes in policies the president may propose and how he conducts himself.

Teachers at Hutchinson Community College are held to the same standard and are scrutinized by their students every semester for the first three years of their stay at HCC according to Pat Bryant, language, literature, and communication department secretary.

            The evaluations Bryant passes out every semester to students have a series of statements that the student can agree with or disagree with based on his or her teacher’s performance in class.

            The evaluations give each teacher a unique, bird’s-eye view of what each student thinks about the class and how they react to the learning that is going on. It also gives administration a way to assess how the teacher is doing and what should be done, if anything, to change the way the class is taught.

            “I feel my identity is connected somehow to how my students perceive me and my class,” Bonnie Feeser, English instructor, said.

Dan Spees, English instructor, stated he doesn’t feel any stress over the evaluations at all.

            Davey Wellington, Buhler, one of Feeser’s students, likes the idea of the assessments and takes them very seriously.

            “I think they give a great idea of how a teacher is doing from a student’s point of view for a change,” Wellington said.

He also thinks they should go more in-depth about how the student feels about the teacher and the class.

            Spees and Feeser both admit that the evaluations give them a huge edge on how to adjust their class to their listening base and assert that they make a huge difference in how they teach the class each semester.

            The evaluations are meant to be taken seriously by the students, and there is a comments section at the end to give the student the option of showing their feelings in their own words. Assessments are reviewed by  the Dean of Instruction, and then instructors are able to read them. They are typed up so the teacher can’t tell who wrote them.

             Instructors at HCC are using the student assessments to their advantage.