January, 26, I973

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Evaluations:
Impact And Emphasis

After four semesters of bitching about instructor evaluation
forms and many devious attempts at avoiding doing them the
student body is finally told that the forms are being used
in a meaningful way in faculty decisions. Will this have any
effect on the seriousness with which they are taken, and coop-
eration in filling them out? One thinks not.

Number one, they are an annoyance, and are usually handed
out just at the time when all minds are on the coming semester,
not the preceding one. Granted, requiring them before one
can register is a good Scheme to get a decent response level,
but the end of a semester is a more logical time. Final grades
do not always aid in making an objective judgment of total
performance.

Second, it really has not been indicated that they do have
an effect. Not that students should immediately see all their
desires on faculty immediately granted, but a simple ac-
knowledgement that the evaluations have been tabulated and
that the Executive Council does find them useful would cer-
tainly be a step in the right direction. This should come not
at a point where the administration feels the need to encourage
students along due to a drop in the response level, but at_a
point where the response level is high and the process is
working well. A note of satisfaction often Works better than
a plea.

Associate Dean Hamilton notes that he has received quite a
bit of criticism about the evaluation form itself, and the whole
method of evaluation, but is intent with staying with the same
procedure. If the response level falls any lower however, the
procedure is not going to be adequate.

The only other input that students have at the moment into
faculty decisions, besides the sterile evaluation, is the student
EPC report. Because they are selective, given that the in-
dividual EPCs cannot contact all members of each course,
they cannot be viewed as the same as a blanket evaluation.
Because they are personal, however, they can often DTOVide
much deeper insights into an instructor’s overal competence,
and really get at the heart of problems with a course.

It would seem, then, that the ideal solution is an all campus
evaluation system which deals with qualitative, not only
quantifiable, data, with individual performance,rather than
relative performance. The answer lies in the ‘additional
comments’ space usually overlooked in the rush to get eval—
nations done while standing in registration lines. A simple
questionnaire, asking for specific attributes and detriments,
and possible improvements for both courses and instructors,
appears to be the answer. This was tried last year by the
History»EPC with an excellent response level, and the com»
ments were insightful and useful to both professor and the
EPC itself.

This procedure on an all-campus level would take more
time in tabulation than the present one, but could be under~
taken by students in conjunction with departmental EPCs
and the allvcampus EPC, and, if its weight was understood,
would be taken much more seriously by the SlUdem 130de

with the decline in response level, it is clear that something
must be done to change the evaluation system. If near-com-
plete student cooperation could be obtained through a more
sensitive method, student input would have “the biggestweight”,
as Dean Hamilton feels it now does. If one is willing to grant
that student opinion on faculty matters is atall valid, and most
faculty members are, the force of a good evaluation is ap
parent. As History professor Greg Guroff has commented:
“A sixty per cent response level is good, but a hundred per—

cent response is unquestionable”
-mew

ausrnzss MANAGER. .
CIRCULATION MAnAcsk
SPORTS EDITOR. . .DlveCnlvei’l
coLuMNisrs . . . ruim AILOl'exg
Dallller, lick happen. Scott Misdh, lahn
polls.

PHOTOCRAPHERS. . John Benlcll,
him Bummer, Ben z Drumlulle Dunn,
nancr rlelcher, Elllclasu, CrIIKKu
riki, liy Minter, Bobsmrks, KenWInu-
kur

ARTIST .. Mirlim Bursleln
mun .. . Nancy Oswald
REPORTEHS . . Mike Breed,
Nick surmner, Elaine Carey, Ann casual,
Michelle cirey, nivid Crow, BiliGlzsel’,
Curt Gorretl, Miriy )ker, Althea Kallas,
Mum. Luwy, Ron Medvln, Craig Murphy,
pm "from, Steve Nunn. Bonhicﬁoswls.
Brenl Srhnndelmeyer, virus-mm, err
in: Wadi", xiii tholmr, Terry Wolf,

.Tnm Glendonlui
, piisnishino

Elie érumell
Satori“ anb ﬁbril:

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Diner or cumin College, publixhtd urn-y uni.
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cur-innit. on Sludrnt Puhlioailnns Ind Radio in.
Karin opinions cu nal necesxirlly reﬂect in. News
or Inn siiurni body, army, or iaminiririnm oi
Grinnell taltcge Miiiriu lrom lhe srirlri mi
and mum in rlnrnduced rm nuhllcallnh without
in ernriir comm sl hr mum

sirrnc class pnxuu pal-f, Crlnnell, low: and,

eon-0R, , .,
MANAGmc EDITOR. ,
copy EDITOR.

Don oigenais
Merry Winner
John wyliu

Conway: Vouchers Mean Duty

To the Editors,

Several days ago Ed Hirsch, soA
Treasurer, without prior consulta-
tion with the Joint Board issued a
directive to the Student Auditor’s
oilice instructing the Auditor to no
longer Write ”No Alcoholic Bever-
ages” on vouchers issued to Hall
Presidents for the purchase of re—
freshments for hall functions.

The {act that the Treasurer for-
mulated policy outside the normal
channels ofrepresentative decision—
making has important and practical
implications for the House Presir
dents and anyone else signing vouc-
hers. Each time anyone signs his/
her name to a voucher, he/she
becomes responsible for goods pur-
chased through the voucher system.
It is common knowledge that there
are ways to ”get around“ the sySr

(ﬂ)
DOUGLAS TO SPEAK

Associate Supreme CourtJus-
tice William 0. Douglas will
speak on the topic "Points of
Rebellion” at 3 pm Wednes»
day, January (ii at Drake Uni-
versity in Des Moines.

‘_7

tern; however, the new policy will
facilitate access to the funds for
purchase of alcoholic beverages
Since the Student Auditor's office
is not responsible for goods pur-
chased with the vouchers, the Stue
dent Auditor has decided to stop
trying to protect the House Preslr
dents and others involved any long

er.
Michele A. Conwny

Student Auditor

$ &
{otters

P.C No To Marine Recruitment

An Open Letter to the Career Ser-
vices Office:

it has come to our attention that
the Career Services Office has, or
is considering, inviting a Marine
Corps recruiter to the campus, We
in the Peace Collective would like
to protest this move and urge the
Career Services Office to retract
us invitation,

We realize that the Career Ser—
vices Office is interested in offer—
ing students the Widest possible
range of career opportunities. We
feel, however, thatthe Marine Corps
is a special case, and has no place
recruiting on a college Campus.

Moreover, the Armed Services
maintains independenl recruiting
stations to attract manpower, and
represents itself heavily in the med-
ia. All this, we mighladd, with the
taxpayers' money.

We feel that the goals and prin~
ciples oi the Marine Corps run dire
ectly counter to our ideals am “so-
cial gospel”, liberal arts institue
tion. We feel that Grinnell College
should take its stand against the
rampant militarism current in the
United States. Inviting the Marine
Corps onto the campus is not the
way to do this.

.The Peace Collective

Daley: Teachin In Australia - The Ugly Circle

(Ed. note: Mike Daley, ‘72, has
spent the past year in Australi;
teaching junior high school and high
school students. Ed Kulawelc, As—
sislant Professor of Education, re-
ceived the below letter recently and
has requested that it appear in the
5&5.)

Dear Mr. Kulaweic,

It has been approximately one year
since I first learned of the deal
about teaching in Australia, so I
thought it would be an appropriate
time to report to you, so if anyone
is considering copying myplans, you
can give them an idea of what they
will find,

I arrived here on Sept. 2 and took
live days of orientation in Sydney.
Orientation was helpful for the fu-
ture work and also because I. got
many contacts with u. S. teachers
who subsequently have been station—
ed allover New South Wales. Third
term started Sept, 12 and SO did I,
with a full load of 30 teaching per—
iods out of a possible forty. I’m in
Liverpool, 19 miles south and west
of Sydney at Liverpool Girls’ HS.
"4200 strong. I teach seven dif-
ferent classes, 7th grade social
studies, eighth grade slow learner
geography, 8th grade Asian studies,
8th grade geography, 9th grade geor
graphy, loth grade commerce, and
llth grade economics. As you might
remember, about the only subjects
of those l’m qualified to teach was
social studies, commerce and cow
nomics. Suffice it to say I’ve been
very busy. It would take much more
room or time than I have tonight
to explain in more detail the ins
and outs of education here as I
know them so far. Generally, I

Brooks, Marcil:
Crisis Principle

T0 the Editors:

Al the last SGA meeting an im»
portant tendency was evidenced the
roughout the discussion concerning
salaried soA posuions, Simply star
ted, lhis tendency centers upon a
significant reinforcement ofthebur»
eaucralic structure through expan»
slonvparticularly in salaried pos-
itions. This tendency functionsasan
example of the “Crisis Principle"
which seems to pervade the opera-
tions or student governmentand‘stu»
dent attitudes, This “Crisis Prin-
Ciple,” a variant of the infamous
Peter Principle, necessitates the
creation of additional official posi~
tions to deal with the crisis at hand.
in this manner the crisis is not
resolved but merely obscured, and lt
was in this light that We attempted
to demonstrate the absurdity ofsuch
logic by our motion to salary hall
presidents--our futile reaction to
the newly created Treasurer’s sal-
ary

Donna Brooks
Thomas A. Marcil

would not suggest anyone come here
Just for the job, Education is cen-
tralized and extremely bureaucra-
tic. Teachers are in such demand

that they don’t expect demand to
slow for seven years. it’s hard
to get fired. At the same time,
work loads are so immense that
teachers can’t and eventually don’t
prepare lessons well. This starts
an ugly circle as I see it. Poor
preparation-"boring Classesrw—
bored students-r discipline and
motivational problems—---slow
learners, poor selfrconcepts Addto
this the trappings of traditional edr
ucation (unl»sex schools, uniforms,
only formal contact between faculty
and students, non-existent extracurr
ricuiar programs) and you have a
picture of education here, ’

Australia the country is a bean-
tiful land. I’ve not had much chance
to travel outside of the State, but
so far rye enjoyed what rve seen.
Sydney is a particularly beautiful
place, It has the problems of smog,
congested traffic and noise which
every city has, but the geographies
ol the area are beautiful. It comm
pares favorably with any City in
the world,

Surrounding a fairly Clean harbor
are sandstone hills where most of

the upper and upper middle class
people live. The famous harbor
bridge deserves its fame, as does
the new Opera House which opens
next October.

Sydney and its suburbsaregrowing
at a terribly quick rate, I am
scared that they're building so fast
that not enough careful planning is
governing the growth. My suburb
of Liverpool is in the main develr
opment area, Flats, apartmentunlts,
go up before your eyes. The pop-
ulation of Liverpool is 76,000 plus
now and the estimate is for lot),

000 by 1980. There are other su-
burbs in the same projection. It
seems as though growth is taking
place so last and they can’t build
facilities such as roads, housing,
schools,‘ and hospitals-Jai'sbe’nougti?
What a great place for someone
in urban planning to be!

Pay for the job is very good for
standards here, I earn what most
would Consider middle Class wages.

I would be glad to respond to any
letters and questions you or anyone
guing into Australian teaching might
have. For that matter, anyone at
Grinnell who's thinking of travel-
ling here could write me for infor-
mation.

Aloha for now,

Mike (“Beak") Daley, ‘72

NY Ragtime Scene

(Ed. note: Ragtime fan Nadir Man»
gialetti is n graduate of Grinnell,
class of ‘72, and a former She
staff member. She recently con-
tributed to following for publica—
tion in her old college paper, and
we're glad to welcome her back)

by Nada Mangialetti

NEw YORK--Why should a review
of a concert in New York be of in,
terest to all you in Grinnell? in
view of the current ragtime reviv-
a1, a look at some of the available
recording artists could be useful
in choosing records.

On December 27, Philharmonic
Hall was the site of a ragtime
Christmas concert featuring Joshua
Rifkin, Bill Bolcorn, the Red Back
Book Ensemble and Eubie Blake.
As on his records, Rilln's dyna»
mic range is so narrow as to be
practically nonexistent. In simpler
terms, he never plays very loudly
or very softly, but always contains
himself to a polite, unexisting mid—
dleground. Rll'in’s campaignlo make
ragtime “respectable" and on apar
with sorcalled serious music IS
commendable, but in pursuing that
goal, he has managed lb leave out
all the happiness and spirit of rage
time. Even Bach would object to
such extreme conimementoidynamr
Ic and emotional limits, which re-
sult in somber, academic music
The Red Back Book Ensemble, Uli—
der Rifkin's direction, experienced
the sums lack otieelinganddynamic
range in addition, they suffered

from a disjointed lack oi teamwork.
They hit innumerable wrong notes.
which was disastrous, since the
melody was the only recognizable
ragtime element of the band.

Bill Bolcom was much better, in
that he exhibited a great deal more
spirit and feeling. His dynamics
were quite varied, suddenly chang-
ing and swelling from one level
to another. His only technical faults
were on occasional missed bass
note, and a tendency not to bring
out the melody notes enough in the
solter sections.

The highlight of the evening was
the appearance of Euhle Blake in
the second half of the program Mr.
Blake, 89 yeurs young, is not only
an excellent pianist from the orig-
inal ragtime era, but he also pos~
sesses a sweet and warm person—
ality. Needless to Say, his playing
was of the highest order, showing a
true artist's knowledge of relative
dynamic levels, Clean precision and
well—chosen tempo He did not play
at the breaktime speed used by rag-
time sensationalists, Neither did he
play so slowly Lind tamely us to lose
the dancerllke happinessolrngtii‘ne.

Most of all, Mr. Blake played with
such feeling that it was impossible
for anyone listening to refrain from
smiling all over. He further enr
deai‘ed himself to the audience with
titles about his life in music. For
all this, he was awarded with a
standing ovation.

I hope this will be helpful to you ,
Grinnell rhgtimers.

 

