"Forstater, Mathew" wrote:
>
> sconsistently horrible or consistently
> superlative evaluations say something. there's just tons of hypocrisy, and tons
> and tons of personal and professional insecurity.
>
Evaluations are _texts_ -- and the recognition that texts are dumb until
an authority reads them is _not_ a discovery of post-structuralism but
goes back several millenia. The authority in the case of student
evaluations is a committee which, ultimately and on average will honor
the power of board/administration. If one sees a faculty as, in the
first and last instance (whatever it is in between), a group of
employees (like Walmart clerks or Ford line workers), then it is in the
interest of that work force (and thus ultimately of the entire working
class, including most students)that employers (including university
administrations) have as few documents re workers as is possible. With
student evaluations, students are willy-nilly being utlized as Pinkerton
agents.
Carrol
