Are Teaching Evaluations Sexist? A recent amicus brief from the AAUP is all light and no heat.

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | November 24, 2023 | Bruce Gilley

[karpov]

In August, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) filed an amicus brief alongside the faculty union of Nevada public universities in support of the gender-discrimination claims of Alice Wieland, a former University of Nevada, Reno, business professor. Wieland, whose research is on gender discrimination, claimed that her tenure committee based its decision on her poor teaching evaluations from students, which reflected not her teaching but widespread sexism against women. The lower court tossed the case out on summary judgement. Wieland appealed, and the AAUP jumped in.

In the brief, the AAUP insists that “a sizeable corpus of empirical research demonstrates that gender bias tends to affect student evaluations of teaching.” This “well-established body of research,” it continued, “demonstrates that women and other marginalized groups face significant biases in student evaluations of teaching in higher education.”

As any academic knows, student evaluations are only one part of the teaching record that faculty present when they are up for promotion. Many other aspects are included, such as the rigor and innovativeness of their courses, a willingness to step into teaching gaps or develop new courses, and the taking on of grunt introductory courses with large enrollments. Student evaluations come in as a final check to make sure that the faculty member is delivering content and meeting his or her side of the bargain in areas like showing up for class, being prepared, grading in a timely manner, meeting with students, being well organized, and, yes, being pleasant and enjoyable to learn from. In my experience, those are the comments that committees pay attention to in reviewing student evaluations.

[ClearCase_guy]

The tsunami of sexism in the education field is why the field is almost entirely dominated by females, I suppose.

[unread]

Yeah, perhaps that’s why that whole system is in near complete collapse.. Being totally feminized and all..

[jeffc]

My wife teaches at an elementary school. She says there are too few male teachers and admins there.

[Ex-Con777]

Quite an interesting read, and a nice conclusion.

EC

[BenLurkin]

“a sizeable corpus of empirical research"

[Chode]

and just exactly WHO are doing the evaluations???

[sopo]

I’m not sure I agree with championing student evaluations as he does as an adjunct to the argument , maybe she gives out too many B’s? And to nitpick, an argument that is “all light” (informative ) and “no heat” ( dispassionate) is usually welcome.

[Ex-Con777]

The gist of the argument was evaluations are racist and sexist. That, to me, is a straw man argument to get rid of them. If you assert that they may not be a fair and accurate tool, we can agree. But the nutty professor acts like the whole negative tenure decision was based on sexist, racist student evaluations. It was not.

EC

[sopo]

I agree.