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Student forum explores evaluations, endowments

By Karl Rybaltowski
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Students, faculty and staff all con,
vened at the Hermann Hall ballroom for their
lunch hour on October 31 for this semester’s
student forum with President Anderson and
Provost Crambl While all enjoyed a catered
lunch, students asked questions on a variety
of topics, ranging from finance and athletics
to the grading methods in some of the studio
courses in the College of Architecture, At mul
tiple points during the forum, Anderson and
Cramb enlisted the help of staff and faculty
members in the audience to field questions in
more detail,

After brief opening remarks by the
president and provost, the first question of the
day, a written submission, was offered, The
author of the question specifically wished to
know what the money from the university’s
funderaising campaign is going to be used for,
President Anderson began his answer with a
description of the current state of the univere
sity’s endowment The goal of the fundraising
campaign is to significantly increase this fund
over the next five years, though it should be
noted that the endowment does not represent
immediately usable assets for the university:
roughly 5% of the value of the endowment is
usable by the university in any given year, usue
ally corresponding to the interest generated by
the fund,

The president took this opportunity
to explain some of the difliculties with large
donations, as well, Many of the alumni donae
tions are in the form of estate gifts, which are
handed over to the university upon the donor’s
death, As Anderson jokingly put it, “Donors

tell us ‘l’ll give you the money, but I’ll have to
die first’, n and we don’t hurry up that process"

The following question built ofi’ the
first, with a student asking about priorities for
facilities upgrades, and asking how much the
donor defines what happens with the donation
money President Anderson gave the example
of one alumnus (who received a business de
gree in the 1960s) that recently gave the uni,
versity $10 million, with half in the form of an
estate gift and the other $5 million to endow
two chairs,

One of these was in the business def
partment and the other was for a philosophy
professor (a favorite topic of the donor’s), The
president pointed out the difliculty of balance
ing the university’s needs with the desires of
large donors, though he stressed that the uni,
versity would not accept money for purposes
which conflict with llT’s vision and mission, as
he did not “want to go down a dark road,"

The following question specifically
addressed the university’s work in making
graduates more competitive in the job mar,
ket, for which Provost Cramb stepped in, He
detailed some of the work that is being done
by the CMC, and praised this semester’s career
fair (the largest in recent memory),

The provost then spoke of the cone
certed effort the administration and faculty are
making to work with alumni groups around
the nation and help graduates find work,

Another topic that came up was
the Greek community advisor moving from
a position under Student Life to Housing and
Residential Services, to which Provost Cramb
answered that the structure of the departments
had changed, with Housing and Student Life
now being under the umbrella of the Dean of

Students, The dean, Katie Stetz, alfirmed that
this did not mean anything additional be writ,
ten into the relationship between the advisor
and the Greek community

Other issues raised included the
university’s improving efforts to increase the
retention rate for both under, and upperclasse
men, its plans to increase the undergraduate
student body size (to around 3000 students,
with all the accompanying facilitiesiespeciale
ly housing), the idea of introducing physical
education courses to the curriculum, and the
way the university’s strategic plan is changing
(including student input that has heavily ime
pacted the existing plan), In answer to this last
question, the provost emphasized the work of
lPRO 2,0 and current efforts to increase the
variety of master’s degrees offered by the uni,
versity, and having different schools working
together to improve the quality of education
for all students,

One issue that received a good deal
attention was teaching evaluations A student
was greatly concerned about the idea that pro,
fessors did not receive, in her View, adequate
instruction in how to interact with students
who had different learning styles, This expand,
ed into a broader discussion, with multiple
audience questions, of the extent to which uni,
versity departments evaluate their own profese
sors’ teaching abilities, through sitein evalue
ations, ongoing feedback and training with
professors, and other efforts, The president and
provost spoke of the need for a teaching cen
ter on campus, so that faculty members could
learn to be better teachers, and that an alumni
gift may make this a reality in the short term,

Dean Russell Betts, ofthe College of
Science and Letters (CSL), was asked to speak,

as the college has been engaging in an inedepth
discussion over the very matters brought up by
students, He started off by pointing out that
“being a university professor is the only prof
fession in the world where you’re not taught to
do what you’re supposed to do: teach," CSL has
spent considerable effort in this past semese
ter to ask the interlocking questions of how
professors are teaching, how they know how
they’re teaching, and how they know students
are getting what they need out of this teaching,
Dean Betts admitted that the college had not
done enough in the past to evaluate teaching,
However, he said that plans were being devele
oped that will incorporate teacher feedback,
classroom visits, and peer evaluations, among
other things,

One of the more lightehearted moi
ments of the event was a question about the
ban on certain indoor sports at Keatingl Enze
ley Mitchell, the university’s athletics director,
explained that the suspension of these sports
was only in effect until the department could
develop an effective method of protecting Kee
ating’s windows from breaking due to impacts,
However, some rivalry between organizations
representing different sports led to accusations
being made by a student during the course of
the discussion,

At the end of the event, responses
from students and the administration were
both positive, Though a wide variety of ques
tions were fielded by the president, provost,
and a number of faculty and staff members,
this forum focused more around the issues
of teaching quality and the nature of alumni
donations, By next semester, these issues, es,
pecially teaching evaluations, may be ready for
another round of more detailed questioning,

 

Photos by Ed Chlem