Necessary rating system

Gregory Livengood / Columnist

It has been recently brought to public attention that some college professors are not pleased with the Web site www.ratemyprofessors.com.

James Miller said in an article in "Inside Higher Education" magazine that colleges should take away student's reliance on the Web site by releasing their own teacher evaluations.

Personally, I don't see that taking away from the usage of ratemyprofessors.com. Like anyone, I have used the Web site to guide myself in what classes to take and, within my major, determine who to take what class from.

The reason that I don't see eye to eye with Miller is because I cannot believe that an institution is about to publish anything giving a professor with tenure a bad rap. This applies less to the adjunct professors, but the question is raised, is the college or university going to publish negative statements they receive? If they do, how is it going to reflect on them if they hired someone that the students did not like? It seems that the powers that be would find that to be too much of a liability.

With the Web site being up, people can easily decide for themselves if a student who has posted a bad review is disgruntled or not. If the professor in question has nine smiley faces and one frown, I think that person's review can be seen as questionable. However, if a professor has all frowns, then I do not find that to be a coincidence.

For me, ratemyprofessors.com has been very accurate, for both the good and bad, and the best way the disgruntled teaching staff can handle it is to be on their best behavior.

Contact Gregory Livengood at pendulum@elon.edu or 278-7247.