Faculty and instructors (both tenure-track and non-tenure track) are invited to attend one of two one-hour open forums for input on the University Course Evaluation Redesign effort.

They will be held from 9 to 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 7, in the Lory Student Center, Room 386, and from 4 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15, in the Behavioral Sciences Building, Room A101.

Faculty and instructors are invited to attend and share their experiences with how and when they use the current university-supplied course survey, ideas for what would make it more useful, and concerns they may have regarding redesign. Because space is limited, organizers ask faculty to attend only one forum. The forums will be led by Professor Zinta Byrne of the Department of Psychology and her team of doctoral students from across CSU who are working on the redesign.

The effort came out of the Faculty Council Committee on Teaching and Learning (CoTL), which took up the issue of re-thinking CSU’s student course evaluations. With the support of Mary Stromberger, chair of Faculty Council, CoTL proposed and received full Faculty Council approval to redesign the surveys. Provost and Executive Vice President Rick Miranda endorsed the project at the end of the spring semester, putting initial funds in place for a complete redesign.

Focus groups are being launched in each college to invite directed feedback; thus, these forum are for those who want to provide input but are not attending a focus group.

While the redesign team has expertise in psychological measurement and survey design, faculty are the experts in how they use the current survey in their classroom, and what is working and not working well. CSU’s ability to offer more forums is constrained, so faculty are asked to support this effort by attending one of these two events, even if they can only stop by for a short amount of time.