Bloomington Faculty Council discusses faculty mentoring, online course evaluations

Bloomington Faculty Council members discussed a mentoring resolution and online course evaluations at their biweekly meeting Tuesday.

FUTURE OF OFFICE OF WOMEN’S AFFAIRS
Interim Provost Lauren Robel discussed the possible changes that might be in the works for the Office of Women’s Affairs, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

“It has been an extremely important advocacy voice for women,” Robel said.

She noted that she is assembling a committee to help decide the most effective ways to serve women on campus in the future, which might not look like what it has looked like in the past, she said.

“It is a very good step in trying to figure out the next set of steps to promote gender equity on this campus,” she said.

ONLINE COURSE EVALUATIONS
Council members discussed a new draft policy that would establish a comprehensive policy regarding course evaluations that are given to students near the end of each semester.

Professor Padraic Kenney, chair of Educational Policies Committee, presented the draft to the committee.

“It surprises me that we make students go through this ritual for our benefit and they don’t get any information out of it,” he said.

After members raised concerns about what questions would be made available in the aggregate to students, Kenney noted that a specific set of questions, designed for release to students, would be included on the surveys.

These questions, Kenney said, would not be included in any decisions about promotion or tenure, as items regarding those topics are not available to the public.

“I think it’s wrong to have students fill out these applications and then tell them ‘sorry, it’s a black box,’” Kenney said. 

With lingering questions about the nature of the released information and the effectiveness of a solely online evaluation system, the BFC will discuss the draft policy at its next meeting.

ESTABLISHING A FACULTY MENTORING SYSTEM
Professor and Dean of the Office of Women’s Affairs Yvette Alex-Assensoh proposed the creation of a more concrete, written faculty-mentoring policy.

She noted that many schools and departments at IU either don’t have a mentoring policy for new faculty, or that there is simply an informal mentoring system. Establishing a more formal policy, she said, would help faculty achieve career
success.

The next meeting of the Bloomington Faculty Council will be April 3.

­— Matthew Glowicki