Many appear to act on the basis of what they read. Course enrollments have jumped from 40 to 400 in a single year following favorable reviews, says CUE Systems Analyst Richard J. Kelly '85, who supervises the processing of data from the evaluations. Kelly adds that the Registrar's Office requests an advance copy of the Guide so officials can take it into account when planning room assignments.

But the recent controversy surrounds other applications of the Guide--applications for which it was never intended, some professors say.

Among the recipients of CUE data is the Office of Instructional Research and Evoluation, administered by Dean K. Whitia. The office oversees teaching within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Until recently, Whitla's office used results of the CUE survey to status the performance of graduate student teaching follows. Section leaders scoring below a 3.0 on the CUE ratings were routinely removed from teaching positions or "invited" to brush up their teaching skills at the Harvard-Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, Whitla says.

That policy resulted in the reassignment of "a small number" of graduate students whose instruction fell below par, Whitla adds. "Fortunately, we land the CUE to help bring them to our attention," he notes.

Members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education say CUE evaluations are also weighed heavily when some departments consider junior faculty promotions.

Promotion decisions require an assessment of professors' touching qualifications; the CUE Guide offers a convenient--if not the only--formal critique of their performance, says Mckay Professor of Computer Science Harry R. Lewis, a CUE represintative.

"In my department, [CUE evaluations] are weighed quite heavily," says Professor of Anthropology Sally F. Moore, another committee member. She adds that other universities often consult the CUE Guide when they consider offering posts to Harvard porfessors.

Use and Abuse

At a recent committee meeting. Moore and Orment condemned the Faculty's use of the Guide as a basis for decisions that affect the careers of teaching fellows and junior professors.

They assert that the Guide is not an authoritative measure of instructors' teaching abilities.

"It's become too big for its britches in some ways, and it concerns me," Moore says. "It's use can be devastating for some junior faculty," she adds.

Any department that relies on CUE evaluations is a "very lazy, shiftless department." Ozment says, urging that senior professors take the time to observe their younger colleagues' teaching firsthand.

Orment, now in his first year as associate dean, last month suspended the use of CUE ratings to word out weak section leaders.

Unrestricted usage of the CUE Guide creates undue anxieties among teaching fellows and non-tenured professors, he says. "The CUE Guide is not a letter from President Bok. The University has a responsibility to put it in perspective, and I'm not sure we've doing that right now."