Faculty to Vote on PIE Proposal

All students could be required to fill out evaluations of their teachers and courses, should members of the faculty vote in favor of a proposal advanced this week by the Student Council (StuCo).Faculty members heard a presentation by StuCo President Max Freedman, Vice President Joon Yang and Policy Committee Head Ange Clayton Monday in favor of the Post-Instructional Evaluation (PIE) proposal. They are expected to vote on the measure next Monday.During the meeting, faculty members asked Freedman, Yang and Clayton to make some changes to the proposal, such as making PIE mandatory (rather than optional). Teachers also asked the Student Council members about whether critiquing teachers would be necessary, according to Clayton.Apart from the questions and critiques, the StuCo presenters said, the faculty response was generally positive."I think people understand that end-of-term course feedback is done at most other colleges and high schools with positive impacts on the learning environment as is supported by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation," Freedman said."The question now is, do we pass this proposal now, or do we do so in five years? There is some headwind, but the feedback Ange, Joon and I have received has been quite positive; I have appreciated the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with faculty about PIE since Faculty Meetings on Monday."Clayton said she believes that all changes and modifications that faculty have suggested were reasonable and that they were thus made in the proposal."Everything we have cut back on, things we modified because the faculty thought it was too far-reaching, I agree with them," she said. "For me, I am very happy with how far PIE has come. Although there might have been some modifications, I'm happy that the bulk of it has stayed the same."Many faculty members said that PIE would positively affect the Exeter community. "I think PIE will improve the student-faculty relationship and that it will make everyone happy," Physics instructor Brad Robinson said."I think that students are going to be fairly positive and that faculty is going to enjoy the feedback they receive. There will probably be a few cases where there are some long term trends in which an individual faculty needs to be addressed. PIE thus gives students a mechanism for expressing their frustration and that’s probably going to lead to positive changes."Math instructor Stephanie Girard agreed. "I support it. I think it’s important to give students a voice, and if they would like to give faculty anonymous feedback, I think that would be very helpful for both students and faculty," she said.Robinson said he was appreciative of StuCo’s willingness to listen to suggestions from the faculty and make changes to the proposal. "StuCo has gotten a lot right, being willing to work with the faculty’s critiques," Robinson said. "Max, Joon and Ange were very responsible to the faculty input that it probably should be mandatory, and I think that the motivation of the students to try to have a mechanism to give feedback for a structure of a course to a teacher is a great move.""I think it’s more important that PIE is mandatory," Biology instructor Sydnee Goddard said. "As long as students don’t get complacent and as long as they take it seriously, I think it will be good. And although many Exonians are thoughtful, making PIE mandatory will certainly help. I hope that PIE will lead to better teachers and better classes."PIE’s key benefit for students, according to Freedman, is the ability to provide comprehensive and anonymous course feedback to teachers at the end of the term when the student has the benefit of hindsight to reflect on the term as a whole."As Joon likes to say, PIE is the epitome of non-Sibi. It is a way for students to improve courses for future students," Freedman said.Clayton agreed. "It will help students improve teachers and classes, essentially because PIE is anonymous, at the end of every single term, because all the teachers will get feedback," she said. "The only way to do that now is to go to another faculty member and talk to them about the teacher and the course. PIE provides students with a safer, more anonymous mechanism for teacher feedback."Freedman said PIE would also benefit faculty. "The main benefit to teachers is that they will have access to the good and the constructive feedback students can provide so that they can make their courses the best they can be," Freedman said. "PIE also benefits department chairs. Currently, when a student brings a comment to a department chair, it is often hard for a department chair to gauge how widespread a student's sentiment is; with PIE, department chairs will have access to concrete data to either support or refute a student who speaks to them directly.""The concept of PIE is really great," Secretary-elect Benj Cohen said. "I think that everyone will agree that having a post-instructional evaluation for teachers is a great way for teachers to get feedback, for students to reflect upon their courses. PIE will be a great way to get honest feedback that is not harmful."Clayton said she hopes PIE gets the thumbs-up/ "I really hope that it can pass next Faculty Meeting," she said. "Hopefully then, StuCo will be able to implement it soon."