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Editor:
As a faculty member and a former member of the Committee of Eleven, I want to express my outrage at the recent actions of the current Committee of Eleven in the matter of the president and provost ("Faculty surveys give Pacheco, Sypherd bad marks," Nov. 5).
To state that the purpose of a performance evaluation questionnaire is to provide feedback to the evaluated individuals, and to then go public not only with the results of the poll, but also with "selected" anonymous comments, is simply shameful. One can only imagine what these individuals would say if their performance evaluations were printed and distributed to everyone on campus.
When I served on the committee some years ago, it was clear to me that its major purpose was to bash the administration. As a vocal member of the minority on the committee, I could do little but voice my disagreement with its self-serving, destructive whining. In the end, I decided that service was a waste of time.
However, in the matter of this questionnaire, the committee has gone beyond the pale. As academics we are supposed to be teaching our students something about critical thinking, the evaluation of good arguments, and the role of ethics in life. Data derived from 25 percent of any population is of limited value. When that 25 percent is self-selected, one can be relatively certain that the data are strongly biased. These facts are well-known to anyone working with evaluations and questionnaires. Given the obvious limitations on such assessments, and the damaging and destructive comments involved, any reasonable code of ethics would have suggested a private presentation of the data.
That the committee went public with the results instead suggests that they were more interested in a whipping than in providing constructive feedback to the president and provost. In so doing they set a dreadful example for all faculty who care about high standards of evidence on the one hand, and common decency and civility on the other. They really ought to be ashamed of themselves.
I wish to state publicly that the Committee of Eleven does not speak for me in this way or any other matter. I urge the members of the committee to spare themselves and the rest of us any further embarrassment by disbanding immediately, and diverting their energies to meaningful activities more in line with the calling of academics.
Lynn Nadel
psychology department head
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