It will soon be time for students to grade their professors through an often overlooked method.At the end of each semester, innocent-looking questionnaires are passed around the classes of each professor so students can make their opinions known. While the professor waits outside the classroom, students fill out these evaluations.

Once students put their finishing touches on these evaluations, they usually never hear anything about them again. This leads many students to wonder what happens to them, and if they are actually important.

“The teachers I don’t really like I fill out, but I don’t really know where they go,” said senior Alex Kipp, a business major.

“I don’t really see how it makes a big difference,” said freshman Alex Fastovich, a mechanical engineering major who said he prefers to view ratings from other students online.

In fact, these evaluations have a heavy role when it comes time for faculty members to be evaluated for retention, tenure and promotion, said Mike Lee, associate vice president and dean for Academic Programs.

Lee explained that while practices vary from department to department, the three main areas in which professors are evaluated are their teaching, research and service to the university, college and department. He said these student evaluations are a “very important part” of the teaching aspect of faculty evaluations.

“Teaching effectiveness is the primary way (professors are evaluated),” said mathematics department chair Roger Leezer. “The biggest thing we have for student reactions are those surveys.”

And while he acknowledged that some students don’t take the surveys seriously, Leezer said that it isn’t a problem.

“You can tell, looking at a batch of student evaluations, if there are one or two out of place,” he said.

The first stop on the journey of one of these student surveys is back to the department for which the professor teaches, where the numerical data from the surveys is summarized.

Then, it’s off to the college for which the professor teaches, where the data will be stored in the dean’s office.

The faculty members who are being rated by students will receive copies of their surveys, but not immediately.

“The earliest they would get them back would be (during) the next semester,” Lee said.

The faculty member can then look over the survey data and any additional comments made by students, who shouldn’t be afraid to speak their minds, Art Department Chair Catherine Turrill said in an e-mail.

“If only one student expresses dissatisfaction with something, then an instructor is less likely to make a change unless he or she happens to agree that there is room for improvement in that area,” Turrill said.

While all professors receive copies of their students’ surveys, newer professors are more likely to adjust their methods, Leezer said.

“When (professors) are young and first getting here, yes,” Leezer said. “It takes a few years to get lined up with what expectations are.”

He added that faculty who have been teaching longer “don’t get many surprises,” explaining that they often receive similar responses year after year.

These surveys are used on a wider scale once it’s time for an evaluation of the faculty member.

The overall evaluation of a faculty member can determine whether or not they will be invited to teach again at Sacramento State, or if he or she will be granted tenure, permanent employment. It can also determine if the faculty member will be promoted or not.

“While they are probationary (that is, until they earn tenure), full-time faculty are evaluated each year,” Turrill said, adding that the same is true of part-time faculty. “Once (full-time) faculty earn tenure, they are evaluated every (4 or 5) years . . . depending on their rank.”

These evaluations start with a primary committee at the department level, moving on to a secondary committee at the college level. The faculty member’s file is then reviewed by the dean of the college, who passes the evaluation to its final stage: approval by the office of the vice president of academic affairs.

Although tenured faculty members have less frequent evaluations, they require a larger period of time when they do occur.

“(Tenured faculty) continue to have their courses evaluated by students on an annual basis, in accordance with university policy, and the data from course evaluations are part of the packet read during an overall review,” Turrill said.

For part-time faculty, student surveys are especially vital, Turrill said.

“In art, part-time (adjunct) faculty are hired only to teach, not to perform other duties, so teaching performance and the factors that document it carry more weight than in the evaluation of probationary tenure-track faculty, who are judged for their performance in the four different areas listed above,” Turrill said.

Cody Kitaura can be reached at [email protected]