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Editor:
A recent flurry of outraged letters to the Wildcat (two Social and Behavioral Sciences department heads and a Regents professor so far) suggests that Provost Sypherd and his adherents are suffering from a sense of injured merit. "Shameful," "irresponsible," and "unethical" are a few of the epithets being used to vilify the Committee of Eleven.
Strong language may express strong feeling, but name-calling seems less appropriate to an academic community than reasoned argument would have been. In the interest of general education, one feels obliged to repudiate such unprofessional antics. Since Professor Lynn Nadel's letter ("Committee of Eleven should disband," Nov. 7) is the only one that even pretends to substantiate its diatribe, it is perhaps the least unworthy of a response.
Setting aside his curiously unselfconscious objection to the "self-serving, destructive whining" of his colleagues, Professor Nadel's argument (to dignify it with that name) amounts to this: The publication of "anonymous comments is simply shameful;" since a mere 25 percent of the faculty responded to the questionnaire, "the data are strongly biased," and the survey is therefore invalid.
The logic of these assertions is not compelling. The Faculty Senate has mandated that anonymous student evaluations of teaching be published. If it would be "shameful" to publish data derived from such opinion surveys, the Professor Nadel might have a point. Otherwise, I can see no difference between the two cases.
And despite Professor Nadel's appeal to "well-known facts," the size of the sample does not invalidate its results. The proper way to ascertain bias is by analyzing the questionnaire. Anyone who troubles to read it will easily discover that both the format and the tenor of the provost's questionnaire are essentially the same as those of student evaluation forms currently in use - as Professor Bruce J. Bayly has wisely observed ("Faculty surveys give 'helpful' feedback," Nov. 12)
Given his willingness to substitute assertion for evidence, Professor Nadel does not seem well qualified to instruct his colleagues in the discipline of "critical thinking." But what I find truly dismaying about his letter is the eagerness with which he disparages his colleagues. By doing so, he has "set a dreadful example" for anyone who cares about "common decency and civility."
The Committee of Eleven does speak for me, and for many of my colleagues. The members of the committee deserve our collective gratitude for a difficult job well and courageously done. I urge them to continue their good work.
John C. Ulreich
Professor of English
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