Months after an online survey revealed the majority of DePaul students were in favor of public online teacher evaluations, faculty rejected the proposal at the monthly faculty council meeting June 5.

While students felt making evaluations public would keep professors more accountable, faculty argued that they are intended to provide input for faculty members and not for students.

As stated at last week’s faculty council meeting, one of the faculty’s biggest concerns with the initiative was that the evaluation was “a bad instrument.” 

Faculty did not approve of the SGA proposal and felt the evaluations need to be reworked before made public for students to peruse.

As reported by The DePaulia, the College of Law and the College of Computing and Digital Media had already implemented public evaluations this past fall. However, now that faculty council voted against the proposed strategy, they will no longer be able to share them online.

The fight for transparency has been a major initiative for SGA since 2011-2012 President Anthony Alfano began working with Academic Affairs to make course evaluations public.

SGA representatives had no comment when contacted for comment.

However, students argue that teacher evaluations are much more valuable than faculty think.

“Sites like Rate My Professors are great for students to make choices about classes, but teacher evaluations are much more comprehensive and give a much better picture of what the class is actually like,” said Amanda Boleman, DePaul graduate student.

Students said they would benefit from knowing professors’ teaching styles and expectations before registration in order to select classes they will do best in.

“It would be beneficial for students to know how the class functions,” said Jessenia Martinez, DePaul sophomore. “The evaluations make it easier for a student to pick a professor who would benefit them and their major instead of just picking one they know nothing about.”