I am also an opponent of anonymous SEIs (student evaluations of instruction). The things students write on those forms are so frequently malicious and frequently without basis in fact. I think people should have to man up to the words they pen, particularly when they're criticizing someone. The future of professors' careers rests in large measure on those SEIs. That's why most professors hate teaching 100-level classes, since it's in those that the student critiques are typically harshest.
Incidentally, the dichotomy between instruction evaluations of lower-level and upper-level classes can be startling. Go to (be)ratemyprofessors.com and compare the ratings of the exact same professors when teaching lower-level versus upper-level classes.
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote: