Presentation on online student evaluations

Jude Antonyappan, associate professor in the division of social work, gave a presentation to Associated Students Inc. regarding the transition of professor evaluations to online.

Sacramento State students are asked to give professor evaluations at the end of each semester predominately through a written method. Antonyappan feels it should be put online instead.

Antonyappan said she wanted to give the presentation to allow students who are interested in online evaluations to be empowered to voice their support. She currently uses online professor evaluations through WebCT and said the method would increase the student response rate, give students more time to take the evaluation and create an archive of previous professor evaluations.

Antonyappan said the written method takes months to process and return the results to professors, sometimes after the next consecutive semester has commenced. She also said it would be environmentally friendly and save the university $80,000 in staff hours, $800 in scantrons and $6,600 in printed pages.

In researching the written evaluation method, Antonyappan said students are concerned the professors can recognize their handwriting and would prefer to type up their comments instead of write. The online method would eliminate both these aspects.

ASI will present a recommendation at Wednesday’s regular board meeting regarding the use of online professor evaluations.

Legislation to request healthier food options at Sac State

ASI President Christina Romero presented legislation requesting University Enterprises seek healthier food options at Sac State.

University Enterprises contract food vendors and Romero said it is hard to find healthy and nutritious food choices with the vendors on campus. She said the healthiest alternatives are salads that don’t provide a balance of carbohydrates, proteins and nutrients.

“I feel that a lot of the eateries on campus only add to the common obesity problem,” Romero said. “I don’t think that hamburgers and fries, and foods that are cooked in lard, and foods that are cooked in fatty oils are doing enough service to students. Although they might taste great, there (are) not enough options to go a different direction.”

The legislation will be voted on at Wednesday’s regular board meeting.

For more information, visit the ASI website.

Ashley Downton can be reached at [email protected].