Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/57872
Letters Evaluating the Teachers "The Scientist and the Sage," in the July/August 2007 issue of BizEd, addressed a problem faced by schools around the world: how to give great researchers and great teachers equal recognition and reward. Reward and recogni- tion should be based upon strictly objective evaluations of faculty. However, schools find it much easier to weigh the evaluations per- formed by external sources, such as the research reviews given out by national and international peers or the research grants awarded by sponsors. Such evaluations are based on globally LEADING THEWAY! accepted and published methodology and practices. The problem with teaching evaluations is that they The Board of Trustees, Board of Governors and President's Cabinet of Chapman University WELCOME VERNON L. SMITH, Ph.D. 2002 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics Professor of Economics and Law Vernon L. Smith, Ph.D. "Chapman has made a score!" - TheWall Street Journal Online "Latest and most dramatic move to elevate Chapman to a world-class institution" - Los Angeles Times And announce the establishment of the new ECONOMIC SCIENCE INSTITUTE an interdisciplinary effort of the � School of Law � George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics � Wilkinson College of Letters and Sciences The research of the Economic Science Institute promises new answers in fields ranging from CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY One University Drive Orange, California 92866 www.chapman.edu international markets and the environment to law, transportation and energy. To encourage public support for higher education, Gemini Industries, Inc. is pleased to sponsor this ad. are carried out locally by students and supervisors. Therefore, the results run the risk of being more subjec- tive and may contain an element of emotional appre- ciation; this can distort an evaluation process that is designed to assess the quality of the teaching, not the quality of the teacher. Perhaps this explains why schools place more emphasis on research than on teaching when they are recruiting. The sidebar accompanying the article, "New Models at Work," offers some interesting avenues for recogniz- ing teaching excellence. We support approaches such as encouraging more published case studies, which allow objective feedback regarding teaching utility. We also feel that student tutoring can promote a more objective evaluation of courses and programs. Like administrators at Harvard Business School and Ohio State's Fisher Col- lege of Business, we believe that the quality of teaching may also be evaluated through new models developed across disciplines by teachers and researchers. Schools should take the development of these new models into account when they are evaluating the teaching contribu- tions of individual faculty members. We would welcome a broader discussion on the eval- uation of teaching in our schools. Valentina Carbone and Don Osborn Ecole Supérieure du Commerce Extérieur Paris, France 8 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007