On Friday afternoon of last week, after 90 minutes of discussion and debate, the faculty of the George Washington Law School approved changes to the school's course evaluation forms, the completing a year-long effort by students and members of the faculty to improve the way students evaluate courses and professors. The faculty meeting followed the Student Bar Association's unanimous endorsement of the new form at its October 28th Senate meeting. Students will begin using the new form in the spring.

Professor Paul Butler headed the combined student-faculty committee that assessed the old form and produced the new one. Student members of the committee, representing the S.B.A., were Eric Malis, Navah Spero, and Treyer Mason-Gale. Along with Professor Butler, faculty members on the committee were Professors Dawn Nunziato, Todd Peterson, Roger Trangsrud, and Sarah Lawsky. According to Professor Butler, the changes marked the first significant alterations to GW Law's course evaluation form since the 1980's. Malis, the S.B.A. senator who heads the Academic Policy Committee, said, "The S.B.A. is appreciative of how much effort both students and faculty put into this project and are excited for the improved form to be instituted this spring."

According to Malis, the effort began last year with a survey of the entire student body, assessing the effectiveness of the current forms. The information gleaned from the survey revealed that students generally found the surveys useful but that many had difficulty distinguishing the ratings of professors on the current 5-point scale because there were generally a high concentration of ratings between 3 and 5. Students also felt that questions on the evaluations would be more informative if made more specific.

The new form replaces the old 5-point scale with one of 7 points that will give greater precision to the ratings. Additionally, the comments section will contain questions of greater specificity and will be split into two sections, one directed toward professors and one toward students. This reflects the understanding that course evaluations serve a twofold purpose; they enable students to acquire information from their peers about professors and courses, while also enabling faculty members to access more direct feedback on their teaching methods. Both sections will be available to students and professors. Evaluations will be accessible online for five years, under the understanding that the most recent evaluations will be the most pertinent.

According to Professor Butler, the new form reflects a recent "explosion of social science research" and "incorporates the most persuasive new ideas about best practices." Butler said that, in addition to the student survey, the changes draw on evaluation forms from other law schools and input from the faculty and "all the law school stakeholders, including the dean of students' office, the records office, the computer and information system folks, and faculty experts on data collection and surveys."

Butler added, "The form that now has been endorsed by both the faculty and the S.B.A. executive board will provide professors with better feedback on their teaching and students with better information to select professors and courses. We are one of the strongest teaching faculties of any law school, and this new form should help make us even stronger."