Theoria

It would seem that I have gone from significantly below average to above average insofar as my teaching evaluations are concerned. (We’ll ignore for now that teaching evaluations don’t evaluate much of anything and are largely a silly bureaucratic exercise that amounts to nothing more than useless “performance indicators” – just like all of our students, all professors can likewise be above average!) Unfortunately I didn’t receive any really awesome comments like the one from the student at Queen’s that called me the “most unprofessional professor [they] ever had.” The best comment came from a criminology student who attended between “76%-100%” of the classes and maintains an “A” average. Their comment was as follows:

Despite having a good overall average at Carleton, I can honesty [sic] say I do not understand this course and how it relates to law. It was of little educational value.

The course in question was my LAWS 3005 “Law and Regulation” which doesn’t cover a region of law (“private law,” “contract law,” “constitutional law,” “international law”) but looks at the relation between law and – as the title of the course indicates – other forms of regulation. The course largely concentrates on governmentality, discipline, and sovereignty (“Foucault’s triangle”) and looks at topics like polizeiwissenschaft, biopolitics, the state of exception, and “the new police science.” The relation to law is pretty clear.

I am pleased to report that my overall score – out of five – for LAWS 3005 is 4.36 on the “substantive” questions (e.g., does the teacher talk loud enough? does the teacher pick his nose in class? does the teacher make you feel like a valuable member of the academic community?) and 4.46 for my “How do you evaluate the instructor?” question, which is counted separately. And my scores for my legal research methods seminar (LAWS 3907) were 4.53 and 4.47 respectively. The average scores in the department were 4.33 and 4.32; the Faculty of Public Affairs scores were 4.35 and 4.31; and the overall score (combining both numbers – why, I don’t know) for the university was 4.4. That the overall scores are so high indicates either that Carleton University is blessed with among the best instructors in the world or, more likely, that these evaluations don’t generate any useful information.