by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
UNM is ranked No. 1 for having the most inaccessible professors, according to a survey by the Princeton Review.
To get the data, the Princeton Review contacts universities and colleges and asks them to encourage students to take the survey, said Adrinda Kelly, a senior editor of Best 366 Colleges 2008.
Kelly said the ranking is based on one question that asks, "How much do you agree with the following statement: 'Your professors are accessible outside the
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classroom'?"
There are five answers, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree, she said.
Kelly said the average number of respondents from each school is about 325, but she did not know how many responded from UNM.
Students volunteer to take the opinion poll at the company's Web site, similar to how Consumer Reports gets its information,
she said.
The University is featured in the Princeton Review's Best 366 Colleges 2008 publication, which puts it in the top 15 percent of colleges in the country, Kelly said.
The survey's results should be taken with a grain of salt, said Jackie Hood, president of
Faculty Senate.
"One survey with unspecified numbers of responses with one-item questions - it's kind of hard to reach conclusions," said Hood, a professor in the Anderson Schools of Management. "I don't know how seriously to take that."
Hood said the survey has questionable methodology at best.
"I don't know how valid this is because we don't know the sample size," she said. "Certainly, one-item questions aren't the most valid."
UNM is ranked 18th for professors getting poor reviews from
students.
Kelly said that ranking is based on one question that asks, "How much do you agree with the following statement: 'Your instructors are good teachers'?"
The Princeton Review is confident in its survey, and the polls represent how UNM students feel about their teachers, Kelly said.
At the end of the survey, students review the previous year's results and comment on whether the survey's findings are an accurate representation of their school, she said.
"Eighty-one percent of students said we were very or extremely accurate," she said. "It's the customers of the schools - the students - who have the most compelling and the most accurate things to say about their college experience."
Hood said there are more legitimate ways to gauge professors' performances, such as course evaluations given at the end of every semester.
She said that in her experience, professors try to be accommodating to students.
"In my department, people are around," she said. "Obviously, there's a range of availability, but there's certainly not anyone I've seen that's not available."
Wood said that while she is wary of the survey's results, she will refer the issue to the Teaching Enhancement Committee of Faculty Senate.
Student Andrew Wood said his instructors weren't accommodating until he started taking classes on North Campus.
It can make school more difficult if an instructor doesn't return calls or e-mails, Wood said.
"When you have a question on an assignment and they don't respond to it in time, it slows you down," he said.
Student Fatemeh Namdar said she doesn't have trouble getting in touch with her professors.
"They're all very accessible in the upper-division classes," she said.
However, Namdar said she's had many instructors who aren't qualified to teach.
"I've had problems with lots of my professors," she said. "We have two extremes: either really good that everyone wants to take for classes and then the complete
opposite."
