Professors are bombarded with smack-talk and chili peppers on Ratemyprofessor.com, but they’re not putting up with it without a fight.
The Dixie Sun News spoke to Dixie State University professors to unveil what they thought about their various Ratemyprofessor.com comments. Below are the cheeky comments and DSU professors’ rebuttals:
“Unless you have a doctorate, don’t expect to pass. She is highly educated but needs to be teaching ONLY upper-division courses.”
This comment was aimed at associate biology professor Erin O’Brien, but O’Brien wasn’t phased.
“This isn’t nearly as evil as it could have been,” O’Brien said, laughingly. “This isn’t the worst one that’s up there; I know that much. I’ve taught upper-division courses, and you know what? I also teach fifth-graders and seventh-graders. I’m pretty sure I can teach 18-year-olds if fifth-graders can understand me. Maybe I’m wrong.”
“Nice instructor, but a bit bitter and jaded. He does seem to have his favorites and I was not one of them. Oh well, **** happens.”
Associate communication professor Eric Young has some of the nicest of the nice comments on Ratemyprofessor.com, but he also has some of the worst of the worst.
“I’m not bitter and jaded, and I don’t know what four asterisk means,” Young said sarcastically.
“This guy is the bomb.com, and he is bringing sexy back to all plus-sized teachers. I would take every class from him if I could. Open book tests and quizzes; the highest test score becomes the 100 percent.”
Associate communication professor Randal Chase has a 3.2 score out of 4.0 on Ratemyprofessor.com and said he is pleased with his score and the comment above.
“That’s true,” Chase said. “I think you have to adjust to the difficultly of the exam because otherwise you can have a teacher where no one can succeed, and I don’t think that’s fair.”
Chase said he views Ratemyprofessor.com as a helpful tool, but he said the DSU official professor evaluation needs to be utilized more. Chase encouraged students who make Ratemyprofessor.com comments to also rate their professors on the end-of-semester evaluation.
“Rick is a good guy, but I did not like this class. Due dates were unknown and constantly changing. Attendance wasn’t taken and then he decided taking it halfway through. His tangents take up the majority of the class. I never knew what was expected of me by the end of his class. I really did not learn much from this class; a lot of frustration.”
Associate communication professor Rick Rodrick said Ratemyprofessor.com is a place for students to vent and not much more.
“(This is) the perfect example of don’t sit and suffer,” Rodrick said. “You know? When I see a comment like that, it makes me sad because that person is not taking responsibility for their education. I’m in my office between three and five hours every day, so if they came and talked to me, I could say, ‘What do we need to do to make this work?’”
“Professor Harris has a unique sense of humor − kind of dorky but funny. The class is fast-paced, and if you want to get a good test score, you really have to study. The class was harder than I anticipated.”
Jerry Harris, an associate physical science professor, has a reputation around the Science Building for being humorous, but students have different opinions about Harris’ jokes.
“Dorky but funny?” Harris said. “Everybody is entitled to their opinion, and yours is wrong.”
Harris said he doesn’t check Ratemyprofessor.com regularly, but he is diligent about checking the end-of-year evaluations. Harris said if professors check the website at all, it’s to see if they have a chili pepper.
