5/20    How important are course evaluations, and specifically
        the evaluations of the professors, for faculty promotions
        at Cal?
        \_ depends on the dept. all depts read them, regardless of
           whether the prof does. be fair and don't froth at the mouth;
           instructors (and depts) can ID and tend to discount wildly
           angry evals unless it's clear that those evals can support
           their claims. wildly positive evals tend to be discounted
           too. :) --humanities gsi
           \_ Yes, it depends *alot* on the department.  I think the
              Berkeley math department really doesn't give a shit about
              teaching.  I majored in math, and got to see a bit about how
              that department works and how they do their hiring.  When
              you apply for a faculty position there, they don't even ask about
              teaching experience.  Of course there are some great teachers,
              like John Neu, but they decided to be great teachers on their
              own, with no motivation from the department.
        \_ And now the truth: you're an undergrad at a research university.
           Unless you have film of the prof molesting 6 year olds just before
           killing them in a satanic ritual (and his face better show) your
           eval won't mean anything to anyone.  The translation of the above
           about ignoring the angry and the happy people is that the only evals
           remaining are the vast bulk that say very little.  Think about it.
           \_ not ignoring all the non-bland ones, just discounting those
              which sound stalker-like (at either end). there's a
              difference. the research univ. emphasis is correct
              otherwise; ucb does care more about teaching across
              the board than many comparable research schools, both for
              hiring and internally, but that's nothing to the fuzzy
              warmth of small colleges. one's teaching record can help
              for advancement but it rarely hurts enough to prevent
              advancement. if you've a serious contention re: someone's
              teaching, take it to the dept chair--they hold office
              hours like anyone else.
              \_ holy shit, no!  do not go to the department chair!  not if
                 you ever plan to take a class with that department ever again.
        \_ If the professor is good or has tenure your evaluation forms
           probably aren't going to negatively affect his career much.
           Do you really expect one grumpy undergrad to matter that much?
           However a lot of professors actually DO care about teaching well
           and evalution forms do help them with that.  Also departments who
           have profs that have a history of getting really bad evals tend to
           work with that in mind.  For instance I think the famous Hurricane
           Wu no longer teaches undergrad classes.  And that is the math
           getting much funcding yet expected to give almost every undergrad
           department which is famous at cal for not giving a damn about
           the undergrads.  (Probably something to do with that whole not
           getting much funding yet expected to give almost every undergrad
           here a year or more of math.)  Also as has been said, good
           evaluations help more than bad ones hurt.  So give good evalutions
           to the profs you like, give constructive critisism to the ones
           you think will actually listen, and don't stress too much.
           \_ Mostly agreed.  Bottom line, be honest, but be mature.
           \_ I was in Wu's Math 1B class for about 3 minutes.  That's how long
              it took to realise the guy was a total psycho and walk out even
              though I needed 1B that semester.  I couldn't believe no one else
              left.  Did anyone else here actually take Wu for longer than a
              week?
              \_ Actually, a friend of mine took his upper division
                 differential geometry course and loved it. of course he
                 is also insane, and is now getting a phd in differential
                 geometry. For some people, Wu is actually a very good
                 teacher.
              \_ Pulled a B. Worst semester ever. --scotsman
              \- The time has come for:
                 http://www.jiggscasey.com/slappy/book_of_wu.html
                 --psb
                        \_ NOW THAT IS HILARIOUS. Is Wu REALLY like that
                           in person? All that cryptic Chinese proverb shit?
                              \- everyone i have pointed to that page
                                 thought it was funny. everyone who had
                                 wu for a class also added "it was really
                                 like that!" The other funny thing is Wu
                                 rally cares about teaching. If you go to
                                 his WEEB site, he's written papers on
                                 *teaching* math. ok tnx. --psb
                 \_ Now you know why you have fans.
                    \- PSB's Corollary to Godwin's Law: All conversations
                       about teaching at Berkeley eventually end up at
                       Hurricane Wu. --psb
              \_ Wu, Math 113... Hard as all hell.