Accuracy and "super liberalness"

I've just spent a few minutes perusing the Campus Report Online site, run by the folks of Accuracy in Academia.  I haven't had the chance to visit CRO before, and I can't say I'm impressed.

Long on rhetoric and short on substance, I note that the executive director of AinA, Malcolm Kline, even stoops to using student comments on Ratemyprofessors.com to research one professor who has earned the wrath of the right, Arlene Scala of William Paterson University.  Kline quotes from a few of Scala's reviews which mention her "super liberalness"; he provides no additional comment.  Given the notoriously unreliable nature of online professor ratings (as I've pointed out, non-students can rate profs they've never met), it's disappointing but not surprising that Accuracy in Academia would rely upon them to attack a professor for her progressive politics.

Malcolm, surely you can do better than that.  While it's true that many professors bring their politics into the classroom, some at the expense of good teaching, it's also true that an extraordinary number of disgruntled students (usually unhappy about their own poor performance) have learned that charging "bias" is one of the more effective tools of retaliation!  At the very least, a group that has "accuracy" in its title ought to be more responsible about the sources they use.

Comments

[Stephanie]

I agree, this stuff is not real useful information. Out of curiosity, I just looked you up on ratemyprofessors.com and all I learned is that you are really hot. A few of your students did comment on what a great instructor you are but it seemed like an awful lot of swooning (not that that's bad or anything ...) :-)

[Hugo]

And while flattering, it ends up telling prospective students (and outsiders) very little that is actually useful. And for all I know, my mother and my sisters are the ones filling out the surveys on ratemyprofessors!

[NancyP]

I find student ratings and comments to be pretty useless. Half want me to do X and stop doing Y, the other half want me to keep doing Y and don't want me to do X. I rely on test results and on comments by fellow instructors who might sit in.

[Hugo]

Agreed. I often tell my students my favorite story about this:

My first semester teaching, I got a bunch of student evaluations in my ancient history class. I've kept them. Most were laudatory, but one student wrote:

"As a Christian, Prof. Schwyzer's obvious hostility to faith really bothers me. He seems to really be unfair to Christians, and to try to attack people who believe."

FROM THE SAME CLASS:

"It's obvious that Hugo is pushing his religious beliefs on the whole class. His fundamentalism comes through, especially in his lectures on Christianity. I wish he'd at least do a better job of hiding it."

Those two students heard the same lectures. I asked my division dean what to do, and she said, "Hugo, as long as you're pissing off both sides, you're doing your job." Though I'd rather not "piss off" anyone, I suppose she had a point, and it's something I keep in mind around evals.

[djw]

Those are great. I was once an "obvious blatant socialist" and "intolerant of those who disagree with American ideals." If only they could both be right...

[Miriam (B)]

I'm really mean, and, like, way too demanding and stuff.

As for the reliability of the site: when last I looked at it (and that was about a year ago), some students were using it to attack the outgoing student body president--who, obviously, was not a professor. Oi.