A new standardized teaching evaluation system may be implemented in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

LAS officials are considering a standardized set of evaluations that would include every department in the college, said LAS Council President T. J. Fletcher.

There is “a lot of turmoil” about the issue because some of the faculty think it is not right to be compared to other departments, he said.

The current system has different questions and different ways of rating instructors, such as the one-to-five system. Some LAS departments use a “one” rating as a high mark, and with others, “five” is the highest mark.

But Fletcher said he wonders how big of an issue the test systems are for students. He also said he wonders if students actually take the time to fill out the evaluations honestly.

The issue is important to some faculty because the evaluations are used for promotions and tenure, Fletcher said.

Elizabeth Hoffman, LAS dean, said comparisons can’t be made for promotions with the current system.

Hoffman said she has appointed a faculty evaluation sub-committee to address teaching, in particular teaching evaluations, among other things. It was the committee’s proposal to adopt the University of Arizona’s system. Hoffman said there is some controversy about the new standardized testing system in some departments. If implemented, the new system may be used to compare “within a discipline, but not across a discipline,” Hoffman said.

She added that departments may chose to compare themselves to other universities.

Some faculty members are concerned that a standardized test would not be accurate because it may be difficult to create a test which would be able to effectively evaluate very different courses, Fletcher said.

However, the University of Arizona has a standardized testing system that has been proven successful.

A decision is expected after Thanksgiving.