Student evaluation programs were created to placate student activists of the 1960s and 1970s. Today's students seem to have little faith in the procedure and are sometimes irritated with the process.

Procedures described as student evaluation of faculty are typically administrative programs requiring students to complete a machine-scored questionnaire that results in a numeral rating of instructors.

These programs are designed to produce increased enrollment through grade inflation and provide nothing of value to students. Students won't have a real role in the improvement of instruction until this practice is eliminated.

There is evidence that current student evaluation procedures do not improve instruction. Students evaluate instructors based on their grades and the instructor's reputation and classroom demeanor.

The full value of a course, meanwhile, may not be evident to a student until decades after it was completed. Or students may feel that their special concerns were ignored in the classroom. Aggregating these responses would yield a very negative, and very incorrect, conclusion.

The one constant result of student evaluation is grade inflation. Responses related to grades are exactly what we should realistically expect from this practice. Realism tells us that the results of questionnaires wont ever lead to the improvement of instruction. More of the same is no solution.

More peer review and radically redesigned student evaluation procedures are in order.

Classrooms are similar to courtrooms. Both faculty and judges have almost complete control. But there are key differences. There are some real checks on judges. Courtrooms, after all, are open to the public.

Classrooms, on the other hand, are closed to everyone except students and invited speakers. Without student evaluations, there simply would be no checks on faculty teaching and classroom performance.

Student evaluations are just one tool used by administrators to determine the effectiveness of faculty teaching. These evaluations have impact only at the margins, unless they reveal serious misconduct or questionable teaching skills.

This limited role for student evaluations is appropriate. Academic freedom protects the right of faculty to present their courses in a manner that reflects their best professional judgment. Students may disagree with how a course is presented, but they may not be the best judge of its effectiveness.

Indeed, it may take years before a student realizes the effectiveness of the teaching in a particular course. Administrators, many of whom have been faculty, understand this.

Student evaluations also take a back seat to research and publishing. These two factors quite often tend to be the determining factors in decisions on tenure, retention, and promotion.

But student evaluations can provide important indicators of where faculty need improvement. They should be used for self-improvement. They should be welcomed, not feared.

*Spencer Davis, a history professor at Peru State College, is a negotiator for the Nebraska State College Education Association.

* Rance Thomas, Ph.D., is a professor of Sociology/Criminal Justice at Lewis & Clark Community College in Illinois.