tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29367161.post1485652054632377079..comments2024-02-11T03:47:47.387-05:00Comments on Lumpenprofessoriat: Student ResistanceLumpenProfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11424425909102486647noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29367161.post-43038853983940448382008-04-30T15:45:00.000-04:002008-04-30T15:45:00.000-04:00Hi Doc Crazy, and hi again Historiann. Welcome to ...Hi Doc Crazy, and hi again Historiann. Welcome to my humble blog. <BR/><BR/>I see I'm going to have to work on my student/labor analogy. The distinction I want to make is the one between waged and unwaged labor, but I find that hierarchy difficult to highlight and so the more familiar boss/worker or business/consumer analogies keep creeping in instead. I do think there's still a useful argument to be made that student evaluations reflect their status as unwaged workers in the academy. I'll keep working on it. <BR/><BR/>As for your second point, you and Historiann are both absolutely right. Student evaluations of women and faculty of color are significantly lower as compared to their white male counterparts. And that's a huge problem. In my post, I tried to remain agnostic about the value, if any, of student teaching evaluations. My only point was that whatever their value, RMP doesn't seem to have worse problems than any other survey instrument. But given that there are probably similar disparities in employee evaluations of female supervisors too, this difficulty may simply further highlight the ways in which students' views of faculty mirror those of employees' views of supervisors -- right down to the sexist, racist, and homophobic results. However, Dr. Crazy's remarks about the effects of these evaluations on women and minorities on campus are exactly right.LumpenProfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11424425909102486647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29367161.post-9881618550921064552008-04-30T13:35:00.000-04:002008-04-30T13:35:00.000-04:00What Dr. Crazy said in the second paragraph--studi...What Dr. Crazy said in the second paragraph--studies repeatedly show that women and faculty of color get worse evaluations from students. It's possible that all of us are much less knowledgeable and competent than our white, male peers, but unlikely. So, that RMP may track with course evaluations administered by universities doesn't make RMP more valid--it just shows that the same biases are visible in both review instruments.<BR/><BR/>But, I don't agree with Dr. Crazy's analogy of the student-professor relationship as that of a customer-personal trainer. I think that the relationship changes depending on what courses you're teaching: are they core or required courses? Are they upper-level courses only for majors? Students who feel coerced are going to feel more like unwilling employees, whereas upper-level students may be more like people seeking the assistance of a personal trainer (but not always.) Students should take responsibility for their performance in classes--but they don't, and so they lash out at faculty members because we're the nearest authority figures, and because we're the ones that set the rules and (apparently ridiculous) expectations in our own classes. We are the bosses--if the price of being the boss means getting called some nasty names by immature jerks, so be it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29367161.post-88518974505917656052008-04-30T11:57:00.000-04:002008-04-30T11:57:00.000-04:00You know, I just can't on board with characterizin...You know, I just can't on board with characterizing the relationship between student and professor as one that mirrors the relationship between worker and boss. I think a better analogy for how the relationship works (that is not mine, but I can't remember where I heard it) is that of the personal trainer. The student, like the person who's trying to become more physically fit, pays someone with a certain knowledge and skill set (professor/trainer) for guidance and instruction. Now, the student/trainee has to do work in order to reach his/her fitness/learning goals. But he/she is not "the worker" in this scenario. The quality of the student's work ultimately doesn't have an impact on the trainer's livelihood (which it would if professors/trainers really were the equivalent of middle-managers with students/trainees as entry-level workers), but the the quality of the trainer's/professor's work (as evaluated by the person paying the trainer/professor) does. <BR/><BR/>Also, and this is somewhat unrelated, I'd argue that some comments on student evaluations and on RMP are intended as reviews of the professor's worth as a human being. I've been called a slew of names on evaluations that have absolutely nothing to do with the conditions under which my students labor but rather with the fact that who I am as a person conflicts with their notion of what a single, youngish woman should be. Is this about my self-worth? No. But it is about the worth that they would like to assign me as a human being, regardless of what they learned or didn't learn in my course. It's not about my performance as either a boss or a worker. And I think that women, people of color, gays/lesbians, experience a lot more of this than those outside those groups, and I think that it can be detrimental to one's success in academia precisely because those who don't experience it call those who do too sensitive while at the same time they believe that those comments are as on target as anything else in terms of evaluating teaching.Dr. Crazyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12457967076373916629noreply@blogger.com