Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Just found out about RateMyProfessor.com from a friend’s website. Part of me is glad that it’s only in North America, although another part of me finds that too bad.

Either way, a local version of that, less informal and that I haven’t checked in a long time, can be found on message forums. Not that I’ve gone there in more than three years though.

I remember a time when the Dean of the college actually heeded the things that students write there. If there were any truth in that rumor I would have been one of the frontrunners of the protest.

After all, there are already mechanisms for getting the students’ evaluation of their teachers, and there are a bit more secure.

Allowing anonymous comments to determine someone’s employment is always bad. Now if they were to verify the complainants’ identities and get signed statements, it would be another thing altogether.

But as long as the possibility exists that it could be disgruntled co-faculty or even the teacher herself just writing false praise about herself, I would not credit such.

And speaking of teacher preferences, this seems to be evident in the fact that the teachers’ names were placed in the enrollment form, and simultaneous classes with different teachers do not have the same number of students listed.

Now, if done during the regular enrollment period, it doesn’t matter that much, because those teacher assignments are all tentative anyway. But when the students are late enrollees who can first determine who are really in the classrooms, it shows unfair bias.

I guess it’s an unwritten rule that any school having several teachers hired to handle the same subjects theoretically are assuring that those faculty members are of equal caliber, guided by the same principles and of similar attitude towards the students, and that there should be no difference in depth or speed of material covered and treatment if they sign up for either.

Theoretically.

Except for those institutions that value diversity above all else, cookie cutter employees are difficult to find.

So I guess it’s up to molding the clay at hand. The development programs offered for faculty and the internal awards for excellence in teaching are a step towards that, as well as the mission vision statements professed and (again ideally) implemented by the administrators.

Not that copycat co-workers are all that desirable either, at least from my experience. Someone has to be the alpha, or the place would breed complacency leading to stagnation.

Then preferential treatment among the instructors will always be present.

And that’s today’s lesson. Class dismissed.