WHAT HIT RATE CAN YOU EXPECT?
Higher Education. For academicians, the hit rate is usually low because so many know nothing about LinkedIn. It is a well-kept professional secret. At college and university workshops, I regularly ask how many faculty are familiar with LinkedIn. The response is frequently 25–50%, which is probably inflated due to social desirability pressure. When I invite most of those persons to join my network, 75–90% are LinkedIn newbies with me as their first connection. (EVIDENCE NOTE: At present, I have more than 200 connections with Moi as their only connection.) Overall, a batting average of 30–50% (response rate) is reasonable.
Business and Industry. With business contacts, expect a higher hit rate of 40–70%. The business world is much more familiar with LinkedIn.
FINALE. This concludes my series on LinkedIn. I hope it has been helpful. Please let me know your thoughts on what worked, what I omitted, and what suggestions you have to improve my blogs. Have an incredible 2011!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
A HISTORY OF STUDENT RATINGS: Meso-Pummel Era
A long time ago, at a university far, far away, there were no student rating scales. During prehistoric times, there was only one university (near present-day Detroit) (Me, 2003), which was actually more like a community college because research and the four-year liberal arts curriculum hadn’t been invented yet. This institution was called Cave University, named after its major donor: Harold University (Me, 2005).
Students were very concerned about the quality of teaching back then. In fact, they created their own method of evaluation to express their feelings. For example, if an instructor strayed from the syllabus, fell behind the planned schedule, wrote faulty test items, or cut class to watch one of those Jurassic Park movies, which he (they were all men) later regretted, the students would club him (Me & You, 2005). This practice prompted historians to call this period the Meso-Pummel Era.
Admittedly, this practice seemed a bit crude and excessive at the time, but it held faculty accountable for their teaching. Obviously, there was no need for tenure. There was a lot of faculty turnover as word of the teaching evaluation method spread to Grand Rapids, which was on the land currently occupied by South Dakota.
That takes us up to 1927. I skipped over 90 billion years because nothing happened that was relevant to this documentary.
References
Me, I. M. (2003). Prehistoric teaching techniques in cave classrooms. Rock & a Hard
Place Educational Review, 3(4), 10−11.
Me, I. M. (2005). Naming institutions of higher education and buildings after filthy rich
donors with spouses who are dead or older. Pretentious Academic Quarterly, 14(4), 326−329.
Me, I. M., & You, W. U. V. (2005). Student clubbing methods to insure teaching
accountability. Journal of Punching & Pummeling Evaluation, 18(6), 170−183.
My next blog will cover the “Meso-Remmers Era,” named after the famous Purdue University professor Peter Seldin. His contributions over the succeeding 32 years will be described.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
State-of-the-Art of Student Ratings
There is more research on student ratings than any other topic in higher education. More than 2,500 publications and presentations have been cited over the past 90 years. Those ratings have dominated as the primary and, frequently, only measure of teaching effectiveness at colleges and universities for the past five decades. In fact, the evaluation of teaching has been in a metaphorical cul-de-sac with student ratings as the universal barometer of teaching performance. And, if you’ve ever been in a cul-de-sac or metaphor, you know what that’s like. OMGosh, it can be Stephen Kingish terrifying.
In surveys over the past decade, it was found that 86% of U.S. liberal arts college deans and 97% of department chairs use student ratings for summative decisions about faculty. Only recently has there been a trend toward augmenting those ratings with other sources of evidence and better metaphors (Arreola, 2007; Berk, 2006; Knapper & Cranton, 2001; Seldin, 2006).
So how in the ivory tower did we get to this point? Let’s trace the major historical events. Hold on to your online administration response rates. Here we go.
A History of Student Ratings
This history covers a timeline of approximately 100 billion years, give or take a day or two, ranging from the age of dinosaurs to the age of Conan O’Brien’s new cable TV show. Obviously, it’s impossible to squish every event that occurred during that period in this series. Instead, that span is partitioned into six major eras within which salient student-ratings activities are highlighted. A blog will be devoted to each of those eras.
References
Arreola, R. A. (2007). Developing a comprehensive faculty evaluation system (3nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Berk, R. A. (2006). Thirteen strategies to measure college teaching. Sterling,VA: Stylus.
Knapper, C., & Cranton, P. (Eds). (2001). Fresh approaches to the evaluation of teaching (New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 88). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Seldin, P. (Ed.). (2006). Evaluating faculty performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
My 1st era blog will tackle prehistoric student ratings of the “Meso-Pummel Era.” How did cave men and women measure teaching performance? Their methods were a bit crude, but effective.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Have you ever wanted to join the cast of one of the "Survivor" reality-TV series, like the Salahis who crashed the White House state dinner? BTW They need to be smacked! Well, you may have your chance.
With the recession invading our lives over the past 2 years, do you feel you have been somehow transported to a desert island, wilderness, or just a desert on your campus to tough it out until you experience the economic upswing the media said is already occurring? You must have had seasons before where your job was difficult. Or, maybe not.
WILDERNESS ALERT: If you have not or are currently not experiencing any problems out of the ordinary and your teaching, grant money flow, research, writing, and/or clinical practice is booming, STOP reading any further. This blog will be a waste of your time.
For the rest of you, it's: guess what? Time to cry out: "Where's Jack Bauer when we need him?" No, of course not, silly. It's "Survivor" time: This “wilderness adventure” on your campus is like “Survivor: The College Campus!” It is probably very different from previous problems you have encountered. It’s unlike anything you’ve experienced in your career, because it’s due to circumstances beyond your control. However, you can exit this experience better and stronger than when it was initially thrust upon you, but only if you make certain adjustments.
That’s what this blog is all about, plus how to end clauses and sentences without prepositions. How can you use this wilderness time as an opportunity to grow as a professional rather than to squander it and regress with each hit that you take?
SO, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Budget cuts in most institutions of higher education nationwide have been affecting daily operations at the department level. How do you know whether you’ve been hit and to what degree? Check out the list below to note whether excessive cuts have diminished your functioning or your programs’:
• New and old programs cut back or cut
• Current faculty and staff (including IT) positions cut or consolidated
• New full-time and part-time faculty hiring freeze
• Increase in part-time faculty to replace full-time
• Salary freezes, cuts, or furloughs
• Cuts in faculty travel, equipment, resources, and/or sabbatical (What’s that?)
• Delays or cuts in building and facility improvements and repairs
• Increases in course-load and general workload
BOTTOM LINE: “DO MORE WITH LESS!”
How have any of these cuts affected you directly? My next blog will identify the symptoms. Then I’ll examine the possible negative, destructive responses and positive, constructive responses to survive the wilderness experience.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
