By Monir Khilla—

It’s almost become traditional for students to go to ratemyprofessors.com while registering for classes, but this pseudo-source is largely unreliable. Students have this naïve notion that the site is a sacrosanct Mecca that they and only they go on to rate professors. Well, the joke’s on us. Not only do professors know about the website, some even leave good ratings for themselves. They let their family, other professors, and even friends go on and leave good reviews, so students get sucked into going into their class. One professor told me they had their daughter (who goes to another university) log on to the website and leave good comments.

So how can we trust a site that doesn’t distinguish friend from “foe?”

This is where Student Government Organization (SGO) comes in.

Our newly elected student representatives should start a NJCU specific “rate my professor.” It would work just like an NJCU election: students come in, show their ID, have their class information ready, and fill out an anonymous form rating the class.

Setting and implementing this system would not only benefit students now, but students in the future, long after we graduate. Or SGO could go back to doing the same thing they do every year, with the same events (they’re all pretty much Meet the Greeks), and the same useless trips.

What’s stopping them?

This form of accountability would be a great service to the NJCU student community, better than any Club Day or Meet the Greeks event. Our SGO has been on a downward spiral, there seems to be more parties and rendezvous than anything educational.

This isn’t a new concept or idea, other schools do the same. The truth of the matter is, our student evaluations don’t matter.

Tenured professors tell us that the forms are anonymous What they don’t tell us is that the professors themselves are the only ones who look at it – that’s right – they look at it. Adjuncts and tenure track professors have their evaluations go to the department chairs and themselves.

Students aren’t allowed to view the evaluations when considering future classes.

So if this is correct, we have no way of knowing who is a good professor and who is a rotten one. The professors know, the department chairs know, but students, who do actually need to know, don’t.

SGO needs to step up to the plate of responsibility and stand up for students. They’ve become the pushovers and scapegoats for both the administration and teacher’s union.