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Another Auraria Project/3
Volume 8
Issue 11
This Ain't No Museum/1
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Long Arm of the Law/16
November 6, 1985
o Pressopolitan
Ya Snooze Ya Lose 1~
Students That Miss MaU-in May be Gone Robert Davis Editor
Students who don't mail register by the Nov. 15 deadline may not be in school next semester, thanks to the enrollment cap placed on Metro by state legislators. Admissions officials said everyone who mail registers should get into school. But, officials warn, those who fail to meet mail-in registration deadline, leaving their registration to the later walk-in procedures, will be talc~ ing a big risk. "If everything runs its normal course, the way everything is running, we'll probably shut down (walk-in registration) on Wednesday or Thursday," said Ken Curtis, associate vice president and dean of admissions and records . Any student who has enrolled at Metro within the last 12 months should be eligible for mail registration. Mail-in favors continuing MSC students, Curtis said, by allowing them to
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someone will move in from the wait list-the same procedure as in past semesters. Even classes that are not full will be closed when the enrollment cap is hit, and wait lists will be formed for those
classes as well. "Essentialy, if the students did nothing more, we would be at our enrollment cap," Curtis said. "But we know there's lots of dropping. So when continued on page 4
How to Avoid Walk-in Registration Students who need to aojust their schedules after they have mail regi;-,... tered may be eligible for telephone registration. Metro is installing a new system allowing students to change their schedule by using a touch-tone phone. The admissions office has mailed letters to eligible students with information on how to access the phoneregistration system. Students who mail register but don't receive the instruction letter should contact the admissions office to see if they can participate. "It's important that they check their birthdate," said Ken Curtis, associate
vice president and dean of admissio and records. "If we have a wron birthdate in the system, you won't b able to get in the system. That's why it being mailed out on the label {of th letter). So if it's not correct, studen can let us know." Curtis said the new phone syste will enable students to adjust regis tration from off campus and allo advisers to adjust a student's schedul from their office. "A working person doesn't need t spend four hours down here .. .it's goin to malce it easier for our busy workin students to get registered," he said.
-Robert Davi
Student Feedback-Not a Big Deal to Teachers Marie Ziauddin
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pick classes before new students can. "The continuing students-those are our first priority," Curtis said. "Those that are here have got to be serviced the best we can." Associate Dean of Admissions and Records John Reed warned that the responsibility rests with the student. "I know we call this mail-in registration, but I personally would never mail it in," Reed said. "I would carry it in." Curtis agreed. 'Tve never heard of a student who handed it in to us that was .quote-unquote lost," he said. Once the cap has been reached, the admissions windows will be closed, Curtis said. And students still in line will be asked to wait a few hours while the admissions staff malces changes on the computer. Full classes that have wait lists will be locked out on the computer, and additions can be made only if someone drops out. If a student drops the class,
Professor X, an instructor in your department, has been teaching at Metro for 12 years. He was awarded tenure eight years ago, and for the past two years he's received poor evaluations from students. As chairperson, you decide it's time to talk with him again. He assures you he is trying harder and that he will improve. But you've heard that story from him three times already, once after every poorly evaluated semester. After looking over aU the evaluations once again-because you have them piled high on your shelf-you decide this can't go on. You don't want to be the bad guy and ruin your friendship with Mr. X, but you've got a duty to the students. You mark him "Poor.'' Disgruntled, Mr. X appeals his evaluation and gets his rating changed before it goes to the dean or even higher.
He's still teaching at Metro, but now you're the bad guy and nothingnothing-was achieved by your marking him poor. The situation you've just read is true. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. The instructor evaluations students are asked to fill out at the end of each semester may be-more than anything else-random tools which instructors may or may not use to improve their teaching effectiveness. And faculty members interviewed last week agreed that the evaluations are even less effective in disciplining tenured instructors than probationary, part-time or temporary instructors. Although there are no defined standards within and throughout the clifferent departments at Metro as to how many "poor" evaluations one instructor need get before being disciplined, most department heads decide for themselves when action is needed. History department Chairman Steven Leonard said he11 sit down and talk with an instructor "if it's clear
there's a problem.'' And Dean Richard Pasternack, who reviews evaluations of department chairs in the School of Business, said he thinks a lot of problems are "more perceptions than reality.'' "If (an instructor gets poor student evaluations) two or three semesters in a row, then we get involved," Pasternalc said. 'But I can understand when they have a bad semester.'' As for the purpose of student evaluations of instructors, Pastemalc said, he thinks they're used as a developmental tool to pinpoint certain traits students don't like, such as an instructor who doesn't use the board enough. The instructor can then read the evaluations and.improve his teaching traits, Pasternalc said. Greg Pearson, director of the journalism program, said he thinks the faculty evaluations by students are the most important criteria for evaluating teaching effectiveness and should carry the most weight. "This is supposed to be a teaching college, yet the thing they award you
least for is teaching ability," Pearson said. "The evaluations should be prime," he said. "The only direct word you have is from the students.'' In July of 1982, the Board of Trustees mandated the use of faculty evaluations by students on a yearly basis. Most departments administer the evaluations every semester and some skip summers. "I always require them," Pearson said. !hey should be mandatory and they should mean something, positively and negatively.'' He said an instructor should be rewarded for the positive evaluations and penalized for the negative. Jett Conner, faculty assistant to the vice president for Academic Affairs, said he thinks tb~ prinlary purpose ot the evaluations is to malce merit pay and promotion decisions. Faculty members are evaluated yearly in three categories, Conner said. They are 1) teaching effectiveness, 2) professional development and 3) colcontinued on page 3