The four Masters who are currently trying out the new survey say the importance of student feedback is the driving factor behind the new initiative.

“The simple answer is we like to constantly improve,” says Cabot House Master James H. Ware. “Just in the same way we evaluate our courses, we should do this self-assessment.”

Currently, the only formal College-wide mechanism for students to evaluate their tutors and Masters is the survey seniors fill out before they graduate.

Lowell House Master Diana L. Eck says this senior survey is not enough.

“By the time the senior survey comes around they’re gone,” says Eck, whose House experimented this year with a qualitative survey given over intersession. “I would rather hear what they think when they’re still here.”

Matthew C. Abraham, a resident tutor in Eliot, says he is not afraid of being evaluated, but instead looks forward to hearing the feedback of students.

“I feel everyone should be evaluated,” he says. “Teachers are evaluated and it’s taken in good spirit. There’s always going to be someone who’s going to say something outrageous.”

Kirkland House Master Tom C. Conley says the tutor evaluation survey that began on Feb. 13 in Kirkland will be an excellent supplement to their more informal evaluation methods of talking to students in dining halls.

“The rule of thumb we use prevails in most places where things work,” he says. “You do three things: you consult and you consult and you consult and you do it in a very amicable way.”

A Slippery Slope

But some Masters and tutors question whether students have enough knowledge of the tutors’ job to evaluate them.

“I do think it’s a good idea inasmuch as I think it’s important to have the student feedback,” Cooney says, “but I think it’s a very hard thing to evaluate.”

She describes a tutor as a “kind of omnipresent figure that’s somewhere between a friend, a parent figure and an adviser.”

Ware agrees that this may present a problem in the usefulness of the student surveys.

“A lot of what tutors do is not apparent in the House,” Ware says.