Beach House: Bloom

Students voice opinion on the online petition urging the Obama administration to allow Texas to secede from the union.

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thewichitan.com your campus/ your newsWednesday December 5, 2012 Effectiveness of prof evaluations debated

looking for a fight r uth fit zger ald -bl ac k st aff wr iter As the semester comes to a close, student evaluations of instructors are in full-swing and some instructors and students alike have mixed feelings about their importance.

Course evaluations are reviewed at the end of each semester and university chairs and deans look for response trends.

While some instructors strongly profess that student responses have and will make an impact on their instructing methods, some are shaking their heads.

According to Lynn Little, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics, it is extremely important students give feedback on their instructors so they will know how well they are doing.

“It is not always obvious to an instructor how well he or she is teaching,” Little said. “So feedback from the students can be very helpful in pointing, both what the instructor is doing right, and what he or she is doing wrong, in the judgment of students.”

Such evaluations also help the department chairs and the dean monitor the quality of teaching in the college, he said.

Many students might also wonder if their evaluations carry any weight within a respective department should they give an instructor a poor review.

Little said in a rare event that a majority of students in a class would give a professor a scathing evaluation, he expected the chair of the department to address the matter with the instructor and work with him or her to resolve the issue.

“Everyone wants to succeed, and this includes instructors who are not viewed by their students as succeeding,” Little said. “I would expect the instructor to work to overcome whatever is keeping him or her from succeeding in the classroom.” In addition, Little said scathing student evaluations, over successive semesters, would likely lead to the instructor leaving the institution.

Little said he dealt with a similar instance at a previous institution.

“After several semesters without improvement, the instructor was given a terminal contract and left the institution,” he said. While poor evaluations might encourage an instructor to develop more successful teaching methods, when an instructor receives an outstanding evaluation by the majority of his or her students, this mark of success becomes part of the instructor’s employment record and is considered in his or her progress towards tenure and promotion, Little emphasized.

Little said he reads each student evaluation response and looks for how well the instructor is teaching.

Some common praises he has seen are students saying an instructor presents material in a way that he or she can easily understand.

On the other hand, students also complain particular instructors do not have an interesting presentation style.

Little said he tries to personally praise instructors when he passes them in the hallway for receiving outstanding student evaluations. “If there are problems, I bring the matter up with the instructor’s chairperson when I meet with him or her,” he said. “It is important that I let individual chairpersons deal directly with any problems that their faculty members may be having, including low student evaluations.”

According to David Rankin, chair of the English department, every single change he has made in his career as an instructor has PROFS pg. 4

Martial arts club discovers challenges with insurance

Ruby arr iaga STAFF WRITER

Grunting sounds can be heard from downstairs at the Falls Town Fighters’ Club.

Upstairs, half the room has eight punching bags hanging from the ceiling while red mats cover the other half.

A small hallway leads to the grunting sounds of two people sparring in a boxing ring.

The Martial Arts Club, a group of students who practices martial arts for the love of it.

Skills cannot represent MSU in any tournaments they participate in though because of one condition: insurance.

“The real problem we had making this group was the insurance,” said Blake Muse, president. “It limits us on what we want to do.”

Muse, a boxer in the group, pushed to make the Martial Arts Club after having a conversation with a friend about it.

Muse said he is passionate about boxing and wanted to find other students who like practicing some kind of martial arts.

He said the offers different fighting techniques that the members can learn, including boxing, kickboxing, Tae kwon do, Judo, and Jujutsu.

There is at least one person who knows the art and can teach the techniques to members.

“It helps give the members an opportunity to learn from their peers, and have fun while doing it,” Muse said.

During the club’s meetings, he said the members aren’t required to do a certain workout. It lasts about two hours and members can choose what they want to do whether it’s sparring, learning a different technique or challenging someone.

“By accepting challenges, it helps members practice their form against a real opponent,” Muse said.

A challenge will start once the fighters tap their gloves.

As they are fighting, members of the club give advice along the way saying when to kick or what

FIGHT pg. 4

Hindu festival showcases dance, culture

CODY PARISH STAFF WRITER

One of the most celebrated and well-known Hindu festival made its way to campus on Friday.

With plenty of dancing, singing and cultural flare, the Midwestern Indian Students Association (MISA) presented their annual Diwali Dhamaka festival event on Nov. 30 in Akin Auditorium. According to Dipika Nayak, vice president of MISA, Diwali Dhamaka is an annual Indian festival that takes place in either Oct. or Nov..

The purpose of MISA’s celebrations of Diwali Dhamaka in Akin were to allow students to experience another culture present on MSU’s campus.

“We want students to get to know Indian culture,” Nayak said. “Every time we have a cultural event we try to show them [students] our attire, the different colors that we use, and food, and different kinds of dance forms we have.”

In the days leading up to the event, MISA raised money for Diwali by selling henna tattoos, jewelry and food to students in the Clark Student Center. Sean Swarthout blocking a hit from Blake Muse. Photo by HANWOOL LEE

Akanksha Bist performs a traditional Indian dance made famous by Madhuri Dixit, a famous Bollywood actress. Photo by HANWOOL LEE

$50,000 scholarship award to Grad school

BRITTNEY COTTINGHAM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Due to the economic climate, financial support is limited for students for their undergraduate career, but the amount of support lessens for those wanting to pursue a master’s degree.

This week, Donna Schenk and her husband Danny helped with that cause by providing $50,000 worth of scholarships to the Graduate School.

“Danny and I wanted to do something for MSU for a long time and when I inquired I found out that the grad student had very few scholarships and these are people who can really use extra help,” Schenk said.

Julie Owen, interim dean for the Graduate School, said additional support is beneficial to all students, but graduate students have needs not present at the undergraduate level.

The Graduate School, which offers 26 master’s degrees, offers only two scholarships specially for graduate students.

“While the Graduate School supplies a number of Competitive Merit Scholarships to the various graduate programs each year, it seems that the demand always exceeds the supply,” Owen said. “Generous donations such as the Schenk gift allow additional students to be awarded.

With such limited resources, Owen said a donation like this one can sometimes make the difference between a student behind able to complete a master’s degree and having to group out of the program.

“There are expenses for research as well as travel expenses to present the research at conferences,” she said. “Scholarships such as this one will allow us to recruit the top students into our master’s program.”

Schenk said her family have a strong relationship with Midwestern with her children’s grandfather being a former chairman of the Board of Regents and her husband attending the university as well.

“Midwestern is a very important part of Wichita Falls and the surrounding area,” Schenk said. “We need to support these students anyway we can. They are our future.”