The Student Assembly passed a resolution last week requesting that Vice President for Academic Affairs of the Student Association Peter Spaet take appropriate measures to have academic department heads turn over SOOT surveys to students for class registration.
The request for the release of the Student Opinion of Teaching (SOOT) forms was proposed to the Faculty Senate’s Educational Policy and Priorities Committee on Jan. 30. The committee voted unanimously in favor of the request and sent it to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee where it awaits approval.
The committee can propose action by the full Faculty Senate, which meets about twice a semester. If the senate gives its OK, further approval could conditionally require approval by Binghamton University Provost Mary Ann Swain. In the event that it does need approval by the provost, that would be the final step in getting the SOOT surveys released to students.
Daniel Rabinowitz, an Assembly representative from College-in-the-Woods, authored the resolution in collaboration with Spaet, who has campaigned for the idea since last spring.
Within the resolution, the SA requested that SOOT surveys be compiled into composite reports by the University offices and released to students for registration and other purposes.
The Faculty Senate designed the SOOT surveys to be a voluntary way for students to provide their professors with feedback.
In 2004, Pipe Dream requested SOOT information for an individual faculty member through a Freedom of Information request to the administration. The administration initially denied the paper’s request, but after Robert Freeman, the executive director of the State of New York Department of State Committee on Open Government advised that “it is unlikely that the University can justify its response to your request,” the University in 2005 decided to release the SOOT results without consulting the leaders of the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate and BU’s provost then decided that for the SOOT results to be a public record designed for consumer information, the forms would need reconsideration by the faculty. The Faculty Senate constituted a committee to review the SOOT policy.
The SOOT survey has been updated since 2005, but the people Spaet spoke with are unsure of if the resolution changed it.
“I spoke to Peter Spaet and we realized that the best way to prevent students from struggling during registration would be to release the SOOT surveys that we are asked to fill out anyway,” Rabinowitz said.
Students voluntarily fill out the surveys at the end of each semester. Spaet said the surveys would be highest quality of information for students when they pick their classes and professors.
Currently, BU students use other sources to get information about professors when choosing classes, such as RateMyProfessor.com, which is often considered biased, Spaet said.
“RateMyProfessor.com is extremely biased,” Rabinowitz said. “Either you hate the professor and you put an aggressive note on, or you love them and give them all top ratings. The average student will not comment on this site. Personally, I’m indifferent and won’t waste my time to fill it out but with SOOT surveys I am often required to in class.”
According to Spaet, the SOOT survey questions are concerned with academics more than those in RateMyProfessor.com.
“RateMyProfessor.com asks how easy the class is and what the professor looks like, when SOOT surveys ask if going to the class helped with the subject matter,” Spaet said. “Students are better off with the SOOT survey questions. SOOT surveys have more academic and educational questions. Shifting students to make their registration decisions based on that would be a good thing.”
Spaet has spoken with the deans of Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, and School of Management (SOM). He also spoke with the Faculty Senate’s Educational Policy and Priorities Committee.
Two of the three individual deans, Donald G. Nieman, dean of Harpur College, and Upinder Dhillon, dean of SOM, agreed the release of the SOOT surveys would be a good idea, but their opinions do not reflect those of their school, Spaet said.
But of the faculty Spaet interviewed, some argued SOOT surveys are personal, similar to student grades.
Spaet disagreed.
“The pros outweigh the cons, and so far most people agree. If compared to student grades, the people who grade me know what I get, which is how the SOOT surveys should be,” Spaet said. “Students provide the information and should have the right to see the results.”
Spaet’s long-term goal is to have the resolution approved by every office and committee at the University and have it passed in a congenial way. Although hesitant, Spaet is willing to use the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) to make the SOOT surveys available, and has already sent in a FOIL request to the Records Access Officer at BU. That could become a longer process, however.
“Through FOIL, I would have to do a FOIL request each semester and wait to hear back from them,” Spaet said. “Then I would have to wait to get the documents, then get them compiled and posted. It is a difficult process both bureaucratically and financially.”
Spaet hopes to have five initial department SOOT survey results available by the fall 2009 registration. These departments include electrical and computer engineering in Watson School of Engineering, economics, history and mathematical sciences in Harpur, and accounting in the School of Management.
“These departments were chosen mostly at random,” Spaet said. “In the long run, I hope to get other departments involved as well. Comment surveys are harder to get compiled than those done in a multiple choice format.”
Neither Rabinowitz nor Spaet felt the release of the SOOT surveys would directly affect hiring at BU.
“The release of the surveys is nothing against the teachers,” Rabinowitz said. “It is basically for us to know which professors to pick. Some professors just are not good teachers. It is not fair for students to come into class and find out they have a terrible professor. We are paying for our education, we deserve to be educated.”