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Evaluating the evaluation process

It signals the end of every semester. Teachers throughout the college excuse themselves from their spots at the head of the classroom, and students get their chance to evaluate their educators via a Scantron form and a No. 2 pencil.

Students rate their teachers’ skills, the school monitors the teachers’ progress based on the ratings and teachers use the opinions to shape next semester’s classes based on the students’ self-prescribed needs.

The teacher evaluation process is nothing new, especially at Columbia. The school, like other private schools in Chicago, has tradi-tionally used a Likert Scale that gives students the option of reporting their teachers’ effectiveness based on a 1 to 5 scale.
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CTA stalls on instructor's art proposal
Agency concerned about quote used in project

One of two Columbia faculty members commissioned by the city of Chicago to create a work of art for the city's Public Art Program said his proposal has been delayed because of concern over its content.

Adam Brooks, a professor in Columbia’s Art and Design Department and coordinator of fine arts, was commissioned by the Program to design art for a Blue Line station. He said he is currently participating in “a back-and-forth conversation” about the content of his project with CTA officials.
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Evictions up 50 percent, some blame ecomony
Funds available to help those facing eviction

The Metropolitan Tenants Organization saw a 52 percent increase in telephone calls on their hotline regarding eviction notices in 2003—538 more calls than the year prior.

Economic troubles including high unemployment rates, as well as raising rent costs are contributing factors, said John Bartlett, program director of MTO.
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Obama sweeps Dems Senate race; Ryan leads pack for Republicans

South Loop voters overwhelmingly voted for U.S. Senate candidiate Barack Obama—who received 82 percent of the 2nd Ward’s Democratic vote—in the March 16 primary, in an effort to steer away from machine politics.

One of the most highly contested and expensive U.S. Senate races in history, Obama beat out six other democrats, including a multimillionaire and a machine politician, only to face Republican challenger, Jack Ryan, in November’s general elections.
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Call it progress: The Chronicle reported March 15 that two companies, Xerox and Linear, are conducting surveys on campus that will measure how much it will cost to bring Columbia’s photocopiers into the digital age. If the results say the switch wouldn’t put Columbia in the red, chances are the old-fashioned analog models will sooner or later turn into doorstops.
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Editorial: Media subject to ‘indecent’ regulations

It’s been nearly three decades since George Carlin offered up his seven words you can’t say on television, in his “Filthy Words” routine, and sadly, not much seems to have changed since then.

Perhaps it’s the unjust backlash from “nipple gate” during the Super Bowl halftime show, or perhaps it’s a security blanket draped over us by George Bush’s puritanical reign of “family values.”
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Out of sight, out of ‘mind’
Kaufman and Gondry team up again for unconventional romance that deals with memory loss

Have you ever wished you could erase a painful memory from your mind—wiping out its existence as you know it? When a relationship ends, those involved often say they wish they never met their ex— but the consequences are never thoroughly considered, since, of course, it’s impossible. Or is it?
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Vintage styles return for spring 2004

It’s where sexy meets sweet, where trendy chic meets the good old-fashioned ’50s, where very hot-pink polka dots meet some very old school Converses and where a very masculine shade of pink meets a very, um, masculine kind of guy.
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