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
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