Evaluations

For many students, a big attraction of Hampshire College was the no-grade system. It's one of the core principles of a Hampshire education: more meaningful evaluation than a simple letter. That more meaningful evaluation comes in the form of narrative evaluations: an essay, written by the person supervising your activity, that describes your performance throughout the semester. Every student at Hampshire receives many of these evaluations throguhout their time here, and most students write an eval or two themselves at some point. This page aims to be a comprehensive guide to the ins and outs of evaluations.

Self-evals
Self-evaluations are required for most courses and for many learning activities. They appear in your Divisional portfolios but not on your transcript. There are three main functions of a self-evaluation:

The first is to give you a space to reflect on the work that you did. You should document all the things you have written, performed, painted; and talk about what you learned from doing your work.

The second is to remind your instructor what type of student you were. If you weren't a notably vocal participant in discussions, write in detail about what may have been notable in your other work. Professors have all your work in your portfolio, but knowing how you felt about certain papers or how you plan to do better work in the future may give them an additional perspective on your portfolio. And reminding a professor should give you a more personal evaluation.

The third main point is to remind you in the future of what you have done at Hampshire. Self-evaluations are useufl for conversations with your advisor about the semester and your future course selections, but they are essential for compiling a Divisional portfolio and writing a retrospective. It's best to begin thinking about how you might evaluate as the class winds down, so that when you do type it out, you'll have some tangible facts, impressions, moments to record--which make divisional work a hell of a lot easier.

Self-evaluations are not to evaluate the course or the professor (there is an anonymous survey at the end of every course for that purpose). Good self-evaluations can be a gauge to intellectual growth, and as you become more aware of what you're interested in at Hampshire, you'll be able to map your development in them.

Most students devlop a method for writing self-evals after a couple of semesters, with a broad list of what they alwayus include. Many professors also have their own guidelines or preferences for self-evaluations, which they usually make clear at the beginning of a course.

Self-evals are posted on The Hub, and professors may also ask for a copy in the Final portfolio for a class.

Course evals
A course evaluation is written for a Hampshire college course (or independent study) and posted on The Hub. These are the evaluations that appear on Transcripts. The primary purpose of the evaluation is subject to slight debate: is an eval for the student, in order to help them learn and improve, or for the outside world and other professors to see how a student perofrmed in a class? See What Your Evaluation Will Look Like below for more details.

Learning activity evals
A Learning activity is any undertaking, whether on Hampshire's campus or off, that is evaluated. These evaluations can be written by anyone, though they are often done by someone in the role of supervisor for that activity. These evaluations can appear on the transcript if the student wishes, and can be included in a Division I, II or III portfolio. Unlike course evals, learning activity evals can be written and submitted to Central Records at any time.

Divisional evals
When passing out of a Division, you will receive an evaluation on The Hub from your advisor/the chair of your committee. These evaluations are meant to sum up your performance and growth over the course of the Division, to give a sense of what your main stregnths and challenges were, and to indicate where you might focus next. These evaluations are prominently displayed on transcripts, and often graduate schools and future employers look at these carefully even if they skim everything else, so they're pretty important.

Deadlines
Self-evaluations have no hard and fast deadline, though a professor may assign one as part of their course. It is generally accepted that the self-evaluation should be posted on The Hub around the time you turn in your portfolio for a class. Because professors need the self-evals in order to write evaluations, it's better to get them in sooner rather than later, and if they don't have them by the time they're writing your evaluation, that eval will probably be less useful to you.

In Division I, students also write a mid-term evaluation halfway through the semester and receive mid-semester feedback. These evals are mostly so that professors can check in with new students and make sure there are no major problems, but they are also useful for reflecting on what you have done so far during the semester and what you would like to get out of the second half. Though professors sometimes write comments for the mid-semester evals, more often they will simply check off boxes indicating whether the student is attending class, completing the work, and whether they have any major concerns.

Final course evaluations are technically due January 15th for the Fall semester and June 15th for the Spring. Some professors get them in much earlier...and unfortunately, a few professors have been known to make students wait months or even years for their eval. However, it is important to note that a professor can't just forget an evaluation; the class isn't done for them until they're all finished. '''If you have not received the narrative portion of an evaluation for a class you know you have passed, contact the professor and politely remind them that you exist. '''

What Your Evaluation Will Look Like
There are three parts to an evaluation: course fundamentals (which say whether or not you participated in class), the narrative evaluation, and the short version that will be on your transcript. Often evaluations directly speak to course requirements that should have been laid out at the beginning of the semester, and many will start with an overview of your major projects for that course. An evaluation will discuss how you managed assignments, your participation in discussion, and it may suggest weak points that need further focus. Evaluations can contain effusive praise or harsh criticism. Remember that they reflect the professor writing them, and try to view an evaluation not as an indictment of your character but as a useful tool for helping you understand how you were perceived in that course.

Length varies; it's a fact of nature. Some professors closely survey a student's work over a semester, and others write a vague paragraph or so. Two to three paragraphs is a good standard, but some will write more and others less. As with many things at Hampshire, if you want more, you can confront a professor about an evaluation and ask for some more tangible commentary on what was, after all, a sizable portion of your (and their) time. And if you are truly unhappy with an evaluation, you can meet with the professor and discuss your performance in person.

When Evaluations Go Wrong
There are flaws to every system. Here at Hampshire, there are times when personal conflicts get in the way of objective evaluations. This is not to say that if you and a professor don’t get along, your evaluation will automatically suffer. Most professors are smart and understand the system. Yet, there are times when grudges get out of control, and professors forget that they are supposed to be focused on academics. If you’re doing good work in a class but feel like the professor is so stuck on a personal conflict that he or she won’t acknowledge your work, tell someone. Similarly, if you think a professor has included something factually incorrect or not legally permissable in your evaluation, let someone know.

The first step is to bring your advisor into the conversation, because part of their role is dealing with this kind of problem (if your advisor is the problem, see below). Most of the time careful mediation can resolve a situation at least to the point where you have a decent eval and get to leave the course and never look back. If a professor consistently writes incorrect or biased evaluations, students can write letters to that prfoessor's file which will be taken into account during re-appointment procedures.

If mediation does not work, or if your advisor is the one you are having trouble with, you may need to file an official greivance. As there are no standardized grievance procedures for evaluations, any dispute that cannot be mediated one-on-one must go through the Dean of Faculty's office. The people at CASA can also be a valuable resource in this sort of situation.

Receiving a "No Evaluation"
In recent years, Hampshire has instituted a "No Evaluation" option on The Hub. If a professor feels that they have not seen enough of your work or participation to evaluate you (ie you did not attend class frequently enough or turn in enough work), you may receive a "No eval". This is, essentially, a "fail": it means that you cannot use this course for a Distribution Requirement, and that it does not count towards your total courses in Division I, II or III. You can still choose to include work from this course in your final portfolios, but it will show up on your transcript as a "No eval" nonethless. If a student receives more than two "No evals" a semester, CASA will probably want an explanation and may put that student on academic probation.

What a professor considers adequate work to merit an evaluation varies wildly, especially depending on whether that professor may be basing their syllabus off a more traditional "Pass/Fail" model. Fair warning: some professors may threaten a "No eval" for missing even one piece of work, or for missing more than two classes. "No evals" can sometimes be viewed as a punishment for not perfoming well in a class, desepite their original intention as an indication that a professor did not have enough informaiton to evaluate.

Confusingly, sometimes prfoessors will indicate that a student recieves a "No eval" in a class and then still write them an evaluation. This is an attempt to provide feedback and help to a student despite thinking that they have not satisfactorily completed the course requirements.

Five College Evaluations
If you take classes at one of the Five Colleges, you'll probably get a grade at the end of the semester. If you want an evaluation, you should ask the professor long before the end of the semester. If the professor has worked there for any amount of time, they may have already written evaluations for Hampshire students. Some Five College professors may not feel able or willing to write a narrative evaluation, but many are happy to do so.

Divisional Portfolios, Examinations and Evaluations
When you are about to move up a Division (or become Div Free), you will have to turn in a giant portfolio to your advisor/committee. This will be a big binder full of work--research papers, essays, drawings/art works, etc.--including evaluations and self-evals. Although you can access all of these evaluations on The Hub, it's probably also a good idea to save them in an offline format just in case, because evals are one of the main ways that your advisor will gauge your performance.

When your advisor has examined your portfolio, you will have a final meeting to discuss your work throughout the Division and to talk about future plans. As part of this meeting you will receive a lot of verbal feedback on your performance, based mostly on your portfolio and on the interactions your advisor/committee has had with you. You will also receive a final narrative evaluation on The Hub. Just like course evals, this evaluation will vary in length depending on the professor, but for Division I it will probably be a paragraph or so. For Division II and III it should be longer and more in-depth. All of these final Divisional evaluations go on the first page of the transcript, and gradute schools and future employers usually read them if nothing else.