By Annika Salant, October 28, 2025
Student feedback through course evaluations at the end of each semester directly contributes to the reappointment, tenure and promotion status of faculty at Cal Poly Pomona. According to Policy 1329 of the CSU Collective Bargaining Agreement, peer review committees use student evaluation of teaching to evaluate the quality of teaching performance. Student evaluations are stored in faculty members’ personnel action files and are made available to reappointment, tenure, and promotion committees, post-tenure review committees and temporary faculty review committees, which are charged with recommending actions based in part or wholly upon teaching performance.
According to the same policy, student evaluations “ensure anonymity of the students” and won’t be available for viewing until after grades are posted. Such feedback helps faculty identify areas for improvement in their teaching or reinforce already helpful habits. Sunny Lie Owens, an associate professor in the Communication Department, said it is far more beneficial to give faculty suggestions via the student evaluation survey than to leave reviews, positive or negative, on an unregulated forum like Rate My Professors.
“At least for the student evaluations we get, it’s an official channel,” Lie Owens said. “I always (tell) my students, ‘You don’t have to like me or dislike me. Just give me something practical that I can fix, like an actionable item.’”
Evaluations are not just an opportunity to complain. According to Cheryl Koos, the vice president of faculty affairs, the CSU mandates them to provide faculty with an opportunity for learning.
“We really emphasize that the RTP process is supposed to address growth and thinking about how we can work with our colleagues to really emphasize what they’re doing well but also the areas that need growth,” said Koos.
Koos added, teaching evaluations are meant to help faculty develop, not punish or criticize them. However, if students have a grievance they would like to file against a faculty member, they should write a letter to or request a meeting with Dean of Students, Weston Prisbrey, via the dean of students meeting request form. This form is not anonymous though, as it must include a student ID and name to be submitted.
What Rate My Professors lacks is a regulated forum. There is a clear disparity between end of semester evaluations and Rate My Professors reviews. Lie Owens explained why scores on the site can look so different from those in faculty’s Personal Action Files.
“People who go to these sites, they either adore you or they hate you,” Lie Owens said. “… Maybe there is no bearing as to why they dislike you. Maybe they just don’t like me because I look like an aunt they had who they didn’t like. It has no bearing on how I am as a teacher, professor or academic.”
Gender bias is prevalent among all forms of student evaluations, regulated or otherwise. Due to this assumed bias, Article 15.18 was added to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. According to Koos, this allows professors to “provide a response to perceived bias in the evaluations.”
Enough students have voiced their opinions regarding faculty that the Faculty A
“I don’t think it’s really fair to a professor to have negative reviews on their page that were from so long ago because that really doesn’t reflect who they are anymore,” Yi said.
To account for this possibility of student bias, Policy 1329 states there are other methods used to evaluate the quality of faculty’s teaching performance during the reappointment, tenure and promotion process, including direct observations by peers in the classroom, judgments about the quality of instructional materials, examinations and examination procedures, and maintenance of academic standards.
Feature graphic courtesy of Connor Lālea Hampton