It's only a memory now, but the image of what it once was to be a college professor is still engrained in the minds of those who experienced higher education in a different time.
Wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and standing in front of an auditorium full of attentive, well-dressed students, the professor held class. He - it was almost always a "he" back then - lectured and occasionally called on students in class, publicly berating those who were unable to summon the correct answer, and commending those who had done their homework. At the end of the term, students crowded around as he posted a list of grades outside his office door.
But that was then. Higher education is different now.
"Professors have come down from the top of the mountain where they are the dispensers of knowledge," said Larry McNeal, chair of Leadership in the College of Education. "Now they are interacting with students in class ... ideally, learning as much from students as students learn from them."
And students have changed, too. McNeal said students were once expected to acquire "deep knowledge" - in other words, if you want to learn about biology, here's a textbook about biology, everything you need to know is in there. Now, with laptops replacing notebooks in many classrooms, students are learning through a "sound bite" mentality, and the role of instructors in the student-teacher relationship is being redefined.
Public ratings of professors on sites such as RateMyProfessors.com are further evidence of the changing roles.
"It's a big cultural shift," said Tom Nenon, vice provost for assessment, institutional research and reporting. "When I went to school, there was no evaluation of professors, but professors had no compunctions at all about calling out students, publishing their grades, all sorts of things. And now it's sort of flipped ... The students can rate them very publicly, but the evaluation of the faculty to the student is very private."
Universities have been using student evaluations for more than half a century as a benchmark in the tenure and promotion process, but the evaluations have met a mixed reception from professors.
"For myself," Nenon said, "it's been that when I'm working hard, it does help to keep me going to see that it's being recognized and valued. And when I'm teaching a new course, it's helpful for me to see what's coming across well and what's not working so well."
But many professors are not as receptive to feedback from their students.
"Some of us are better and some are not so good, and all of us need to work on taking criticism in a constructive way, even if it's not constructively expressed. I think that's the hard thing," Nenon said.
Even professors who have overwhelmingly positive ratings overall can get defensive if one or two negative comments show up on their evaluations.
"What's interesting is that some of the people who bristle most are not even the people who are getting low evaluations," Nenon said. "I know some people who really, they're just perfectionists. They really work hard on their teaching, they really work hard to publish and what's funny is they're the ones that are really sensitive about the one comment out of left field. I try to point out how many other comments that they are getting. But by personality, they just want to do everything right. That's why they're so good in their fields. But that one comment, it really bothers them."
Other professors find it easier to shrug off negative ratings. Lisa Eldin, academic services coordinator in the College of Arts and Sciences, said evaluations have been usefulfor her, although there are occasional angry comments.
"SETE is pretty much fairly on target," Eldin said. "I had a student a couple of years ago who gave me the worst rating possible, and I had to laugh."
Eldin said the student who gave her a negative rating would often leave the room during class, only to return later and ask questions about the material she missed. Eldin said she refused to reteach the lesson, but she did offer to go over it after class. Nevertheless, the student complained in the comments.
"She was angry, but it was ridiculous," Eldin said. "I think some students take out gripes that are unfair on the instructor. That's rare, though. I think, overall, if someone is a decent teacher they are going to be more pros than cons."
But some educators are looking at evaluations as part of a larger change in the philosophy of higher education.
"I think that higher education is in the shift from being an institution that dispenses knowledge but moving towards a notion that they are an environment where knowledge is produced," McNeal said. "We try to get some understanding of what's going on in that classroom."
"As this continues to unfold, I think the smartest colleges and professors will come up with multiple ways to assess teacher effectiveness," McNeal said.
At the College of Education, McNeal said they emphasize the importance of classroom instruction by having colleagues sit in on each other's classes and review each other's teaching methods.
With the costs of higher education rising, and increasing competition from educational institutions like community colleges and online degree programs, McNeal said the future of higher education may depend on continued innovation and adjustment.
"We are dealing with an environment where we need to be cognizant of ways to make sure that we're keeping people coming back," McNeal said. "We have to adjust to survive."
