The "XX" Factor: Gender bias in course evaluations

While course evaluations are intended to provide important and constructive feedback about college classroom experiences, they also demonstrate a significant amount of gender and other bias. It’s that time of year again: when college and university students sit with a No. 2 pencil and fill in bubbles (or click boxes on an electronic device) and rate their professors. While course evaluations are intended to provide important and, hopefully, constructive feedback about college classroom and content experiences, they also demonstrate a significant amount of gender bias. Such bias has been the subject of concern for many years, prompting a number of media articles and a good amount of scholarly research. I started reflecting on my own evaluations last summer when I read two delightful memoirs – Jessica Valenti’s Sex Object and Tina Fey’s Bossypants. I particularly loved how both authors shared some of their favorite (and crazy-mean) hate mail. Fey’s sassy-pants responses to the nasty comments she has received actually made me laugh out loud. But then again, Fey always makes me LOL! In this spirit, I thought it would be fun (and therapeutic) to share some of my favorite course evaluation comments from over the years. I originally offered the evaluations, and my own sassy responses, on social media and was relatively surprised by the discussion they generated. As I told my Facebook friends, these are real comments – because I certainly wouldn’t (and couldn’t) make this sh*t up. Student: “I love Dr. Grillot’s shoes, she has the best shoes.” Me: Well thank you – I do LOVE shoes! I will clearly incorporate more great shoes into my course plans from now on! Student: “….she thinks she is Jennifer Aniston.”