Contributed Commentary on
Volume 5 Number 8: Stake Response to Haskell:
Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Student Evaluation of Faculty

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31 March 1997

Robert E. Haskell
University of New England

Stake seems to clearly agree that the administrative use of SEF should be eliminated, but remains curiously unconvinced by my arguments and multiple concrete examples suggesting that SEF violates academic freedom. He asks a number of questions regarding the conditions and circumstances of their use, and raises other significant questions regarding the meaning of academic freedom. I will address both these areas of concern, though I directly addressed many of them in the article to which Stake refers (Haskell, 1997).

In initially appraising Stake's response above, I specifically used the phrases "seems to clearly agree" and he remains "curiously unconvinced" for a reason. Stake opens his critique with,

Almost anything that can be done to undermine the administrative practice of getting students to evaluate teaching ought to be done. One of my major concerns is that the process of asking students their opinion undermines the trust and faith they need to place in the teacher. Instead of saying, "Here is a great scholar and teacher; learn from her what you can," the administration of evaluation forms says to students, "We hired these teachers, but we are not sure they can teach or have taught you enough. Please tell us whether we guessed right...I also believe that student evaluations can strongly influence the behavior of teachers, and for the worse...[and]...I changed my teaching dramatically because I was told by my Dean at the time that I had to keep the customers satisfied if I wanted to get tenure....Certainly the evaluations affect our classroom behavior, influencing both the style and content of our presentations.

He then curiously goes on to write, "That said, I am afraid I have not been convinced by Haskell's arguments that the evaluations violate academic freedom." I am somewhat confused by this.

First, I am confused because it is not clear whether many of the objections Stake raises are specific to my paper or whether they are general questions; whether they belong to the realm of internal or external criticism. Second, I am confused because if he agrees that (a) SEF should be eliminated, (b) SEF undermine the trust that is apparently a prerequisite for student learning, (c) SEF can negatively influence faculty behavior, (d) he changed his own classroom behavior because of their influence on his candidacy to tenure, (e) because an administrator made it clear that his attaining tenure was in some measure dependent on achieving a positive rating students, and that (f) SEF can lead faculty to change the content of their courses, then (a) why does he remain unconvinced that SEF negatively impact academic freedom? And (b) if, indeed, SEF does not impinge on academic freedom, then why would he want to eliminate them?

Apparently--as indicated below--the answer to why he remains unconvinced that SEF impinge upon academic freedom could be that he is not sure where the boundaries of academic freedom lie. Stake then asks other questions. First, he asks,

If I were to have my students fill out forms on my teaching, surely it would not violate my academic freedom.

My answer to this implied question was and is "no," for as I clearly indicated in my article,

It is important to note at the outset, that it is not SEF per se that is the issue, but the impact of its use on salary, promotion, tenure decisions, and its impact on the delivery of quality education.

Second, to his question, "What if a colleague wishing the best for my success convinces me to do so? Does that violate academic freedom?" given my referring to the administrative use of SEF, not just any use of them, my answer is, accordingly, "No."

Third, to the related question, "how about a well-meaning teaching committee?" my answer would depend on the role of the committee. If the role of the committee was simply for confidential feedback to the individual faculty, given my above position stated in my article, my answer was and is again, "No." If, however, the committee is charged with policing teaching quality, and enforcing their views with some form of reward or withholding of reward, given my above position stated in my article, my answer was and is "Yes."

As for his fourth question regarding objecting to a suggestion to use SEF made by "An avuncular Dean in a friendly tone, or in a threatening tone?" my clearly implied answers are (for any familial-acting Dean) "maybe" and "yes." Maybe, depending on the context of the suggestion, and most certainly yes, if in a threatening tone (again, assuming their administrative use).

Moving on to the basic issue of academic freedom itself, Stake goes on:

But I would go further than that. Certainly I could properly be pulled from the classroom if I insisted on teaching only what everyone else would call "art history" in my "Property Law" course, even if I teach a stellar art history course. We cannot leave all choices of substance to individual teachers.

I remain unclear as to what the problem is here regarding my paper. I said in footnote # 9

While faculty are entitled to freedom of discussion and inquiry in their classroom, it is a generally recognized limitation that they should not introduce controversial matter which has no relation to their subject. What constitutes "controversial" and "no relation," however, often remains an open question.

Stake continues,

A closely connected question is whether academic freedom belongs to the academy or to individual teachers. I am unclear on this point and see arguments on both sides....It is fair to say that its ownership is no simple matter, and resolving it one way or the other would not settle the question of the wisdom of using student evaluations of faculty.

First let me say, again, I am not sure whether Stake is unclear about the issue itself, or whether he is unclear regarding the issue of academic freedom in my paper. First, I said

To further complicate matters the concept of academic freedom, like most abstract terms is logically fuzzy around its edges.

Second, assuming Stake is unclear about the issue itself (the question of the ownership of academic freedom, notwithstanding for the moment), I would disagree that resolving academic freedom one way or the other would not settle the wisdom of using SEF. On my view, either way academic freedom is resolved SEF (used for administrative purposes) would violate academic freedom. I would perhaps agree with Stake if, and only if, a voluntary faculty policy assented to them (see below). I said in my paper,

SEF can and do reflect these and other political and cultural conflicts, creating what the courts in other contexts have called a chilling effect on academic freedom....

Academic freedom is a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom. While the two rights are not necessarily the same, they frequently and sufficiently overlap to trigger judicial scrutiny when faculty performance evaluation process threatens to impinge on the First Amendment (Copeland and Murry, 1996)

I also said in footnote # 29:

For purposes of this paper I consider the mandated use or non use of SEF for salary, promotion and tenure by union contract agreements a special case of the "voluntary" nature of SEF.

Regarding whether academic freedom belongs (that is, to protect) individual faculty, I said,

The university tenure function insures one of the only places in society where open dialogue on any issue no matter how unpopular or unorthodox can be critically examined without consideration of the political cost, without fear of reprisal, without the pressures of social taboos, social norms, faddish movements, personal notions of etiquette, and other immediate pragmatic pressures that exist in the culture in which it is embedded. Above all other roles, this is the defining feature of the university in a democratic society....Academic tenure, then, is not like seniority in business, civil service, or a union where the purpose of "tenure" is for the protection of the worker. Unlike these organizations, academic tenure is for the protection of the education function, not individual faculty jobs; it is for the protection of the role of the university in a democratic society.

Stake continues:

But that alone is not enough. As O'Neil concedes, academic freedom does not stop universities from imposing a large set of regulations on research.

The apparently unresolved questions here are: Who is the university? Is it faculty policy? Is it independent administrative policy? Or is it a cooperative /compromise faculty/administrative policy? These issues appear to be open legal questions, or at least complex and conditional ones. Further Stake says,

Haskell does not give us a way determining what actions violate academic freedom. He has left some of the most basic issues unresolved, indeed even unaddressed.....It may be too much to ask for clear tests to be enunciated, but it is not too much to ask that these issues be addressed in some way....So how do we draw the line as to what sorts of academic behavior administrators can control without infringing upon academic freedom? I have not yet found an answer. But those making the claim that student evaluation forms go too far could help their case by offering some way to draw that line. On the other hand, insisting on that asks for too much, for no one has yet accomplished the task. I am not arguing that all line drawing and decision-making should be done in a legislative manner. It is fine to say, in the style of common law judges, "this infringes academic freedom," without setting forth a set of rules for making similar decisions in the future. If that is the approach taken, however, at least some comparisons should be made to other, well-accepted and established, violations of academic freedom.

In my view, I find this confusing for two reasons. First, on a level, the entire paper addresses many of these issues. Second, I said

In explicating SEF, many closely related issues must be substantially bracketed........the purpose of this paper is to coalesce arguments, and data, and explore implications of SEF.... this paper will review the issue in search of a more tutored policy....

In a subsequent paper I will coalesce and deal more fully with legal ruling involving SEF in the denial of reappointment and tenure.

Stake further asks,

• Who owns the freedom and, conversely,
• whose actions can violate the right?
• Can any lines be drawn based on whether the substance or form of classroom behavior is influenced?
• And still another crucial point is whether a body can violate academic freedom without any intent to interfere with or control the substance of what is said to students.
• Similarly, does the faculty member have to be aware that the administrative (or other) action is influencing her behavior?
• Those comparisons might lead the writer to discuss why this particular bad decision, to have students evaluate their instructors, needs to be corrected from outside the academy by courts rather than by the academy itself, which seems to be the implication of the argument that such evaluations violate academic freedom.

These are all important questions, some of which I had planned to cover in two following papers. Some of his questions, however, I had not thought of and will subsequently consider.

References

Haskell, Robert E. (1997). Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Student Evaluation of Faculty: Galloping Polls in the 21st Century. Evaluation of Faculty" Education Policy Analysis Archives, 5 No. 6 (Online: http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v5n6.html).

Stake, Jeffrey E. (1997). Response to Haskell: "Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Student Evaluation of Faculty. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 5 No. 6 (Online:http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v5n8.html).