Why Me and Stephen Hawking Get Bad Student Evals

I
knew there must be some logical explanation as to why my Summer students
gave me such low evaluations. It couldn’t have been just because
I taught the class largely by remote control fron an isolated fishing
cabin in the Yukon or that for the final exam I took them on a field
trip deep into a housing project in Cripps territory and gave them the
slip. It’s blatant discrimination against the hunkiness handicapped!
Hafta send a copy of this article to my supervisor…..

Good
looks may be just as important to teachers as they are to actors or models,
according to a study by Texas economist David Hamermesh.

The study of 94 University of Texas professors and 25,000 students found
that the better-looking professors got consistently higher ratings as teachers
from their students.

Hamermesh, a labor economist at the University of Texas, says the findings
could call into question the practice of using evaluations as a factor
in setting teacher pay scales and promotions.

"
Even if instructional ratings have little or nothing to do with actual
teaching productivity, university administrators behave as if they believe
that they do, and they link economic rewards to them," Hamermesh wrote.

In the study, 10 students were asked to rate the attractiveness of the
professors by looking at photographs, then those ratings were compared
to evaluations scores turned in by the professors’ students.

from the Chicago Sun Times