Ryan Johnson Columnist

Ever since freshman year, I've often volunteered to proctor the teacher evaluations that are given out at the end of the semester.

It's an easy job. The professor leaves the room, students fill out the forms and then the proctor puts them in an envelope and turns them in.

But as I'm walking to the drop box, I always take a look to see what students put. Sometimes it's comical. I wonder who honestly puts that they spend more than 15 hours a week preparing for a gen ed class. Or who writes in that there was too much math, when the professor used only a few graphs and a bit of algebra.

But there's one pattern that's very predictable and somewhat disturbing. Almost without exception, students give professors overwhelmingly good recommendations.

In fact, the vast majority of evaluations check either "more effective than most" or "one of the most effective I've had."

Indeed, go on the Associated Students of the University of Arizona Web site, where there's a link to an entire database of teacher evaluations. Supposedly it's online to let students find out which classes are good and which classes to avoid.

But going through them one by one, it's hard to find any class or professor that is "less effective than most." So how are students even supposed to know who is good and who is bad? They can't all be good.

Entire departments have not one professor who is "less effective than normal." Is this possible? Isn't it some sort of law that the average, is, well, average? As it stands, a professor who is "as effective as most" is actually far below the average rating.

If we normalized the ratings, which is to say adjust the ratings so that the average is average, there would be plenty of teachers that were really "less effective than most" but were rated "more effective than most."

And unlike rampant grade inflation in students' grades, a complex problem, the blame for this problem lies squarely on the shoulders of students.

I'm not sure if this is because students interpret the five boxes as A through F, and grade the professors like the professors grade them, which is to say on a very inflated basis (average graduating GPA at the UA is 3.1).

Or it might be that students think it will somehow lead to them getting a better grade even though it's anonymous. But let's clear up one point. Professors don't see the ratings until after grades are finalized. So unless you think that you're going to have that professor again and your one honest evaluation will cause him to give you a lower grade, there's really no reason not to be honest.

Put simply, this "ratings inflation" doesn't make sense. It serves no purpose and actually takes away the value of doing the evaluations in the first place. Ironically, students once fought hard to be able to give evaluations.

Collectively, we need to make a decision that we're going to evaluate professors honestly. Think of it as constructive criticism. It allows the departments to know which of their professors are teaching professors and which of their professors are research professors. Students obviously would prefer the former, but that's a topic for another day.

Moreover, the comments section at the bottom is almost always left blank. This is our opportunity to offer the professor suggestions or specific criticisms. Professors talk about how they really take to heart any comments made on their paper. They always pay attention to their ratings. And it only takes one comment for the professor to be tipped off as to something that they're doing wrong.

So, this week or next, when you get that bubble sheet, your answers should not all be the very first bubble. Give it some thought. If the professor handed back tests a month after you took them and wouldn't stay after class to answer questions, he probably doesn't deserve to be called "one of the most effective."

Ryan Johnson is an economics and international studies junior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.