Issue date: 9/11/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Christine Soriaga Riley Bryan, a member of the Texas A&M Student Senate goes over the agenda for the Senate meeting that was held Wednesday night in the Koldus Building. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Christine Soriaga The Student Senate discussed a variety of topics Wednesday at its meeting, including the passing of a bill that would allow students to determine the faculty pay-grade. [Click to enlarge]

The Faculty Evaluation Based Bonus System Bill, which seeks to incorporate student opinion in awarding additional monetary gifts to dedicated teachers, was passed with a 46 to 11 vote at the Student Senate meeting Wednesday.

The bill involves the institution of a Student Evaluation of Teachers, or SET, that will be distributed to each student in their respective classes. This proposed document is a list of twenty questions aimed at assessing the performance of teachers in different academic disciplines.

Each question is answered on a scale of zero to five, and, according to proponents of the bill, this form of evaluation allows each individual student to accurately estimate the strengths and weaknesses of their teachers.

Michael McKinney, chancellor for the Texas A&M system, spoke in favor of the bill, stressing the idea that most professors are underpaid and in need of bonus wages.

"I secured from the Board of Regents some money with the express purpose of rewarding the outstanding teachers selected by the students," McKinney said. "We call this a customer satisfaction award."

McKinney expressed his intentions of requesting $12 million from the Texas state legislature to address the issue of underpaid University professors.

McKinney and other proponents of the bill confirmed that the money is not appropriated to professors by the experts on staff, rather the power lies within the hands of University students.

The bill is designed to benefit hard-working professors, however faculty members said that the bill is an insufficient proposal.

"While we love the idea of giving teachers money, we want to do it right," said Clint Magill, speaker of the faculty senate. "All the studies have shown that just having a questionnaire and counting up the scores is ineffective."

Professors are not the only figures at A&M who are skeptical of the Faculty Evaluation Bonus System Bill.

Student senators at the meeting voiced dissatisfactions, claiming that the provisions outlined within the proposal may promote grade inflation and encourage fraudulent relationships between students in want of higher grades, and professors desiring the monetary benefits.

Jess Fields, an off campus senator, suggested other problems associated with fiscal appropriations outlined in the proposal for carrying out these monetary awards.

"Twelve million dollars is a good amount of money," Fields said. "Now obviously we can't control where that money goes, but we can make a recommendation. We can make it known that we don't like this and that we think the money should go elsewhere."

Fields said that A&M is facing a $4 million (Interim Director of Dining Services Lallah Howard said the deficit was $2 million) shortfall in Dining Services, and with such a deficit, the University cannot afford to spend upwards of $12 million on this discretionary program.

The bill was introduced at the meeting to collect a consensus of the student senate as a formal recommendation of opinion for A&M President Elsa Murano.

For additional information on this bill as well as others up for future discussion in the senate, visit senate.tamu.edu.

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