Bad Sections Won't Be Solved by CUE Guide Alone

It has long been my (not entirely popular) theory that grade inflation and student discontent with the quality of sections taught by graduate teaching fellows are related phenomena. As I have already stated in print, Harvard's tenured faculty have allowed a situation to develop in which the CUE system has become a kind of electronic overseer of what once was, presumably, a proud system of rigorous academic evaluation by highly qualified professionals. Now teaching fellows grade students who, in turn, grade them. In too many cases, no professor ever interrupts the flow of this mutually destructive cycle, the result of which is today's high level of grade inflation and mounting student discontent with the quality of teaching at Harvard.

Now Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell has put his support behind a plan that would make evaluation of "troubled" teaching fellows (as identified by the CUE questionnaires) mandatory (March 11 Crimson). I think evaluation of "troubled" (whatever that means) TFs should be mandatory. But a more forceful and sweeping use of the present CUE system is not the way to accomplish this.

CUE evaluations are not mandatory and it is difficult to see how they ever could be. It may be possible to compel a student to fill out a questionnaire, but it is extremely difficult to insure that he or she does so intelligently, thoughtfully and fairly. One need only drop the veil of the abstract and look at the real results of the present CUE system to see this. I taught 40 students last semester in two sections of Lit and Arts A-66 and received 20 CUE evaluations. Of those 20, two were blank on the rating side and 12 were blank on the comment side. Of the 12 commenting I would say that four were constructive ("his somewhat caustic manner sometimes hides his concern and can be disconcerting"), two were simply laudatory ("Adam was great!") and two were just plain rude ("leads idiotic discussion")--though not necessarily accurate.

I know it's always deflating to inject facts into a spirited debate on theory, but that is what the CUE produces at its best--a 50 percent return rate of which, perhaps, 10 percent are useful and about five percent reflect sheer disgruntlement, while another five are testament to the general bliss of the excellent student doing well. It should come as no shock that I could do my final grading from these evaluations. I gave two straight As, had two truly disgruntled students in my class who did not do well, and felt that, overall, about 10 percent were really up on the material and engaged with the section. Par for the course in a Core with a reputation as a gut.

I do not find it surprising that Brad Setser and other UC members quoted in your article support a wider use of the CUE to assess teaching fellows. Such a practice would represent a quick fix of "empowerment" to those students who care or are particularly disgruntled that would, in the end, be diluted by the general apathy and lack of inspiration in the average CUE response. A few particularly lame TFs would go to the woodshed on the third floor of the Science Center and the status quo would remain in place. The plan also makes Dean Buell look good while not creating any more work for his tenured colleagues in terms of their actually doing some of the evaluation of TFs--and of students, for that matter--themselves. Dean Buell, in his alter ego as Prof. Buell, is already immune to such criticism by being the most attentive and involved of teachers, which I suspect is why he took the job of dean in the first place.

If I sound as if I am being too summarily hard on too many segments of Harvard's population, then allow me to indict my own. One reason for the apathy at Harvard, which I am arguing is reflected in the percentage return and general vapidness of CUE evaluations, is grade inflation. Most students will not complain about a decent grade even if they think it is a hollow one. Who can blame them for that? I freely admit (for the second time now) that I am part of this trend to inflate grades. And I reiterate that nothing will change this except increased direct involvement of tenured faculty in the related processes of grading students and evaluating TFs.

Until Dean Buell and the UC face this fact they will not have done their jobs, which is not to provide feel-good fixes, but to get to the bottom of the problem. The proposed solution may sound empowering, but it really provides more of the same. It's professors handing students a bubble card and a number two pencil and saying, "Solve your own problems." Adam Weisman   Quincy House Resident Tutor in English