SUCCESS RATES SURVEY
COMMENTS – EDITED (
1. EVALUATION OF
SUCCESS RATES AND THEIR USE:
(1) Very bad system.
(2) As long as we have an open-door policy and students are encouraged by counselors to enroll in more courses than they can handle given their work loads and family responsibilities, holding instructors accountable for success rates is a sham.
(3) There are so many external-internal factors that dictate student lives and their interest in and focus on coursework which affect their attendance and grades. Faculty cannot control many of these factors so it is not logical that faculty should bear responsibility regarding the choices they make and their ultimate performance in class. For many, school is the last priority of a busy, crowded life, and nothing faculty do or don’t do will change that.
(4) A low success rate in a course is not entirely within the control of the faculty member. This system is biased against small classes. A host of other factors influence student success. For example, I had a bipolar student who couldn’t get his medication regulated and withdrew the third week of class. Another student had a complicated pregnancy and was put on bed rest. Another student simply opted not to attend the required lab. She was passing the course with an A, but was forced to withdraw.
(5) Frankly, the scrutiny functions to rob us of the joy of teaching and implicitly tells us we are unappreciated and are not doing a good job. It flies in the face of the supportive culture of empowerment to do my best work that I’ve come to expect at MCC.
(6) I fear that the current policy will be very detrimental to the integrity of the college, and it is the faculty’s responsibility to safeguard the college and demand a change in policy. Further, I refuse to submit to “grade inflation” just to keep my success rates high.
2. IMPROVEMENT ON THE
USE OF SUCCESS RATES:
(1) Remove withdrawals from the success rate calculation (several said this).
(2) Counting “W’s” is really unfair.
(3) Success rates should be considered over a long period of time, not just one semester.
(4) We need to have a two-hour question/answer session with top level administrators on this issue.
(5) If withdrawal rates are going to impact my evaluation, I should have an opportunity to help students not withdraw. Faculty should have to be consulted and sign off on paperwork for any student that wishes to withdraw from a class.
3. NEGATIVE RESULTS
OF SUCCESS RATES BEING USED TO EVALUATE FACULTY:
(1) Ideally, standards should not be lowered [to reach success rate goals], but in practicality, that is exactly what faculty are doing. I believe both student evaluations and success rates are hinging on a violation of academic freedom – we are becoming reluctant or afraid of the repercussions of holding students to high academic standards or to observing policies such as attendance, tardiness, observing due dates, etc., because of fear of losing raises, promotions or even employment.
(2) Emphasizing whether faculty members get a promotion or are re-hired based on how well a class succeeds is very troubling to me as a professional. I feel as if I am being pressured to lower my standards and perhaps even water down the curriculum.
(3) We are lowering our standards to bow down to success rates! Those of us who want to see students learn will be penalized because we hold students to a higher standard. Do I really have to dummy down my classes???
(4) I have a student who was given an “A” in English 1101 and a “B” in 1102. His spelling and grammar would not get him out of third grade, but apparently some nervous adjunct sent him on into the system rather than ruin a “success rate” statistic!
(5) This policy provides the wrong incentives for faculty. Faculty will now have an incentive to promote a certain percentage of students and thus, create a watered down course to accomplish this. This will result in grade inflation as we will be motivated to achieve step increases through altered methods of teaching and assessment.
(6) I have noticed that although I still care about the success of all my students, I am reluctant to demand standards as high as I have in the past. I fear that the use of success rates will cause the quality of MCC students to be lower when they reach university. In the past we have had reason to be proud of the quality of our graduates. Why should we want to change that now?
(7) I do not understand the purpose of the pressure for success rates. Unfortunately, it appears that the administration is looking for ways to cause faculty to look for positions elsewhere, to limit our academic freedom, or to cause lower morale among the faculty.
(8) While I do not calculate the number of students I need to pass to keep my success rate in range yet, I anticipate that I will in the future. I am also less likely to fail a student who should fail, because I do not want to be scolded.
(9) I am glad to see this survey as a first step in dealing with this controversial issue. In my department this issue has been a real “downer” to morale! While the best of intentions certainly went into the development of this policy of success rates, it is not liked nor appreciated by anyone I have spoken to . . . and certainly not by me.
(10) The current success rate use is a way for the administration to make dumbing down the curriculum look acceptable and put the blame for low pass rates on the instructor. It is a major disappointment for a typically competent administration.
(11) The issue of success rates is destroying the faculty’s morale.
(12) Asking college faculty to consider “success rates” is humiliating. It is definitely driving my curriculum as well as my attendance policy. . . . Some students choose not to succeed, and they have that right. I should not be held accountable in any way for their choices in life, and I resent the fact that I have been made to feel that I am responsible for their lack of success in my class.
(13) Many of the faculty in my department have openly talked about checking their pass rates before submitting grades. They have also inflated grades to make sure they meet an acceptable range of success rates. One of the facts that Dr. Pappas seems to be proud about is how well our graduates do in the university system. Since we are now inflating grades to keep our jobs, we will be passing students who have not developed proper study skills. Hence, MCC can expect our once proud statistic of providing quality students to the university system to become tainted.
(14) I feel a bit odd about saying that I address success rates in my teaching strategies when all I really do is think about rather I should lighten up the course requirements or grading. I don’t know how else to keep my success rates within range beyond lowering standards.
ONE IRATE SURVEY
RESPONDER OBJECTED TO QUESTION #2:
Question #2 is bogus.
The point of the document which everyone
got a copy of is to identify those faculty who aren’t
doing a good job of teaching. Everyone
knows that success rates are affected by many things over which the faculty don’t have control, but WE set the success
rates. We need to have a way for those
faculty who either pass all their students, give away the course, or who don’t
do well teaching a particular course can be identified. I really don’t think they should automatically
get step increases while the rest of us do our job well.
Edited by Ray Hundley
Faculty Observer to the Board of Trustees