🚀 go-pugleaf

  In reply to Mitch (and also Victor Harnack earlier) -- no, it is not a
matter of large numbers of verbally vindictive student evaluators, but a
combination of factors: 1) demanding courses/teachers rarely get rave
reviews (though years later ...) or many high scores; 2) even a few very
low scores stand out prominently (esp. in rapid scanning of many evaluations);
and 3) the intense competition for scarce faculty rewards.
  All of this is driven by the fairly recent trend of administrations to tap
into _what used to be_ for the sole use of the instructor (self-improvement):
evals were returned to him/her w/o scrutiny by anyone else, except by explicit
permission.  That system decayed into, 'Well, if you want to be reviewed for
tenure/promotion/increment, you must of course submit all evidence,' then
further into "making the trains run on time" by simply having all the paper
go directly to the department chair.        Hugh P. Munro, Comm Studies
                                            Kent State U.; HMUNRO@KENTVM.BITNET