The solution, some teaching fellows and juniorfaculty members say, is to use student evaluationsin addition to faculty observation and othermethods of feedback.
Neal Rosendorf, who has been a teaching fellowin several history courses, says the historydepartment uses the CUE ratings as "one measureamong many."
He says the history department's system is fairbecause the professor's evaluation of the graduatestudent counts for more than the CUE ratings inhiring decisions.
"But that's not to say the CUE has no value,"Rosendorf says. "[My] CUE evaluation did offer afairly accurate assessment of my teaching, bothstrengths and weaknesses."
James D. Wilkinson, the director of the BokCenter, says he believes "on average, thestudents' comments [on CUE evaluations] are fair."
"I think that written students comments on theCUE forms are an extremely valuable resource, andI think they could be more widely used ingeneral," Wilkinson says.
But he stresses that the CUE forms cannot bethe only form of evaluation used.
"I think that any information about teaching[performance] must come from several sources, andstudent input should only be one of a number ofsources for that judgment," Wilkinson says. "Thatcould include evaluation by the course head,evaluation by a head teaching fellow, andself-evaluation by the teaching fellow."
"Just as in grading student performance,"Wilkinson continues, "the more different sourcesof info you have about a teaching fellow'steaching, the more fair the judgment will be."
Associate Professor of History Cemal Kafadar,who has consistently garnered high ratings in CUEevaluations, says he believes the system should bechanged slightly if ratings are going to be usedfor hiring or promotion decisions.
"Graduate teaching is not always reflected inthe CUE guide. There is also dissertationadvising, which is never evaluated in any formalfashion," he said. "I think departments should askeach and every graduate student to write anevaluation."
"At Princeton, where I worked before, they askstudents and faculty to come together and write ajoint evaluation," he said. "I don't know howseriously [the joint evaluation] is taken, butit's done."