The Michigan Doily-Thursday, February 1, 1979-Page 7
CLB reviews course evaluation guidelines
Carter administration
considers Heat hCare
By JOHN SINKEVICS
Student evaluations of courses and
professors is an issue which has cap-
tured the attention of students and
faculty members at the University for
several years, and two major questions
now face administrators and depar-
tment heads:
* Should results of all course
evaluations be released for perusal by
the student body?
* Should these results be used by
departments in their assessment of a
teacher's abilities as a criterion for
promotion or tenure approval?
These questions were raised at last
Thursday's Civil Liberties Board
(CLB) meeting where members attem-
pted to pinpoint a specific direction for
the group's involvement in the course
evaluations issue.
'U' prof.
studies ape
language
.(Continued from Page 1)
A baboon vocalization is a grunt-like
sound which can vary in the number of
sound units, intensity, and rate of deliv-
ery, according to Gilmore.
"ANIMALS VARY the mode of per-
formance according to who they are
addressing and the situation. It's
(vocalization) used by older animals to
interact with younger ones, especially,
infants, or mothers with infants," he
stated.
Gilmore said a comparable feature
has been found in human language by
socio-linguists who say that humans
vary the level and mode of language
depending on the age and status of the
person to whom they are speaking.
"Since human language is at its
essence composed of units of sound
which can be arranged and rearranged
to give sounds different meanings, it is
fascinating to discover that, to a limited
extent, animals are capable of doing a
similar thing.
"THIS BY NO means suggests that
baboons have language capacity equal
to that of humans, but it does demon-
strate that the gap between human
language and animal vocal com-
munication is not as wide as was once
thought," remarked Gilmore, who is
the first primate behavior specialist in
the University anthropology depar-
tment.
Gilmore said he thinks animals can
only communicate about themselves,
and cannot'commiunicate about the ex-
ternal world.
As the fifth researcher at the Gilgil
project, Gilmore kept detailed records
of births, deaths, copulations, and
fights, which were kept for later com-
puter analysis.
LIFE IN GILGIL was dictated by the
animals' routine. Gilmore said he
usually observed the baboons from 8
a.m. to 2 p.m., and then transcribed his
taped notes in the afternoon.
Gilmore became an anthropologist
after working for eight years as a high
Yschool humanities department chair-
man. In 1970, at age 30, he enrolled at
the University of Pennsylvania, with
Dr. Robert Harding as his mentor.
"Ultimately, as an anthropologist, I
want to figure out what neW perspec-
tives this (research) sheds on the
evolution of humans."~
WITH THE Gilgil project under his
belt, Gilmore is presently conducting
two research projects in primatology.
The first tries to analyze the functions
of the vocalization made by the female
baboon in a mating context.
The second project is an attempt to
trace the evolution of a behavior found
in baboons and macaques, "agonistic
buffering." This behavior occurs
during a tense situation. A male picks
up an infant and holds it to prevent a
second male from attacking him, even
though there is potential injury to the
infant.
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PROF. JAMES Duderstadt, an
assistant to the Vice-President for
Academic Affairs and head of a special
committee which has investigated the
course evaluations issue, asked the
CLB to set up some evaluations
guidelines and said that any proposal
which the CLB decides to endorse in
this regard should be brief and general.
"The guidelines which have been
brought forward are still too complex,"
he stated. "I think if they were brought
up for a vote before the Senate Assem-
bly tright now, I don't think they would
pass."
A preliminary set of guidelines was
approved by the CLB last year - a
three-page document which recom-
mended that all teachers should submit
to some form of evaluation - but
Duderstadt said that this document
contained too many details which could
be attacked by faculty members and
administrators. Instead, he said the
guidelines should be vague enough to
pass on principle.
CLB MEMBERS agreed to tackle the
question again and Chairman Milton
Heumann has now formed -a special
course evaluations committee to look
into problems and solutions.
CLB members agreed that two Civil
Liberties issues are involved. One con-
cerns students' rights to know the
results of evaluations in which they
have participated, and the other con-
cerns the professors' rights to not have
their courses evaluated by students.
School of Social Work Professor
Sallie Churchill, a member of CLB, said
that although she is in favor of student
course evaluations, she would like to
see students sign their evaluations
before they hand them in.
"THERE IS no accountability on the
part of the students for what they say
about a professor," she stated. "If a
professor's promotion or tenure is to be
considered in part because of these
evaluations, a student should be willing
to take the responsibility for saying
what he does."
"It's different when I grade a
student," she continued. "I'm damned
by confidentiality and I have to account
somewhere for that grade."
In an attempt to get more teachers to
,release evaluation results, the Student
Counseling Office (SCO) worked exten-
sively with the Michigan Student
Assembly (MSA) and the Center for
Research on Learning and Teaching
(CRLT) as as part of a special Course
Evaluations Project (CEP) last term.
The CRLT is now providing an
evaluations service in which teachers
can select certain questions for their
course evaluation sheets from which
computerized results can be obtained.
In addition, a block of eight questions
was placed on the teachers' selection
sheet, which would allow results to be
forwarded to the SCO for student
perusal. Individual professors are
given the choice of selecting this set of
questions or ignoring them in favor of
others.
JAMES KULIK, associate director of
CRLT, said that out of 1,600 courses
that were evaluated last term, only 80
teachers elected to send the bloc of
eight questions to the SCO.
"It's actually a pretty good response.
It's the first term we've done this and
there really hasn't been that much
publicity concerning if," he explained.
"Also, most teachers didn't have any
say in the matter - some departments
have a policy of not releasing this in-
formation."
However, Barbara Roberts, an SCO
coordinator who was directly involved
in last term's CEP, said she is disen-
chanted with the prospects for a
University-wide release of course
evaluations to the students at large.
The SCO has a long history of problems
in trying to get departments to release
such information to the office, and she
said that until she heard yesterday that
80 teachers had agreed to release their
course evaluation results to the SCO,
she had assumed that the whole project
had been scrapped.
"I don't know if we really want to get
involved with this thing again," she
said. "We wasted a lot of time and good
people with this last term, and we can't
afford to give them up again.'
Roberts said, however, that the SCO
may still assist in the project, if MSA
will agree to coordinate it. She said
coordinators will be meeting with MSA
representatives next week.
(Continued from Page 1)
and a special rate negotiation board
made up of.providers, consumers and
insurance companies.
The government also would establish
a special re-insurance program to un-
derwrite all catastrophic health costs
so no individual or company could be
bankrupted by huge, unanticipated
costs.
TO FINANCE the plan, employers
would pay a minimum of 75 per cent of
,the premium for each employee, and
the premiums would be paid either to
HealthCare or a federally-approved
private insurance company competing
with the government for the employer's
business. The one per cent payroll tax
that now helps pay for Medicare would
be transferred to HealthCare.
The poor, unemployed, uninsurable,
and elderly would be guaranteed in-
surance through HealthCare, even if
they couldn't afford to pay a premium,
and the cost of that coverage would be
paid from general tax funds.
The plan doesn't carry a specific
price tag, and much still depends on
how it would be implemented, but
earlier government estimates for a
similar program said it would take "a
rough minimum" of $40 billion in new
money to pay for the proposed system.
The nation's first accident insurance
company was formed in 1850. The first
company specifically organized to
write health insurance was founded in
1847.
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I . Mountaineering #1.
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?7 T
What is mountaineering all about?Funy you should ask.
Because we just happen to have an answer. (Ah-h, life's little
coincidences.) Mountaineering is a skill, a science and an art.
Yet anyone wth a thirst for excellence and normally
developed moor stkills can master it. Simply study
these damentals and follow them faithfuy
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..ig the correct site.
To do so, pick up .
a bottle of Busch.
This is commonly
called heading for the
mountains.
3Now for the
3 tricky part.
Neophytes, listen
up: the proper pour.
is straight down o
the center of the
glass. Only in
thi& way will
the cold, invigo-o
rating taste of o 0
the mountain
come to a head.
-.?.I" " -
firmly in your left hand,
grasp the mountain
, top with your right
hand and twist
t the little fella off
CC ' .There you o.
Once poured, pacing becomes paramount. As any seasoned
" mountaineer will tell you, the only way to down a mountain
is slowly, smoothly and steadily - savoring every swallow of the
brew that is Busch. If you're a bit awkward at first, don't be -.
discouraged. Perfection takes practice. Soon enough, having "
emptied your gl s and filled your soul you too will be a . t
mountaineer
* -
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