Academics

In SMU’s journey to become a Tier One school, the university has often neglected the most important thing that separates it from the top 50 – academics. Students complain that the value of their education doesn’t match the tuition they pay for it. University enrollment is regularly criticized for not being more stringent in accepting applicants. Retention of top students, especially minority students, is a constant worry.

Despite these problems, SMU continues to neglect evaluating the quality of education students are getting. At the end of each semester students are asked to fill out teacher evaluation forms, which help departments assess the value of a course and the effectiveness of the instructor that teaches it. Rarely, if ever, is the effectiveness of the university itself assessed.

In 1998, the federal government ordered accrediting organizations to make student learning their most important criterion when evaluating schools. Some schools have responded by creating outcomes assessment programs, to try and measure how much students have actually learned. The Academic Profile, developed and graded by Educational Testing Service (the same company that produces the SATs) measures students’ knowledge and skills in humanities, social sciences, natural science, reading, writing, math, and critical thinking with 36 multiple choice questions. Although success of the test has been mixed among those universities that have implemented it, the test is useful in determining just how much or how little a class of students has learned over the course of the year. In effect, it allows the university to determine how good a job it is doing.

Teacher evaluations effectively only look at part of the whole university experience. Students of this university care enough to fill out teacher evaluations every semester, and should care enough to take the extra 10 minutes to fill out a multiple choice test. Even a questionnaire handed out to returning students asking them “How good an education do you believe your school is giving you” would be a better evaluation of student satisfaction than none at all. If this school is to elevate its academic standing, it must first realize that a problem exists. And if there is no problem, we should at least have empirical evidence that shows us there is no cause for complaint.