At the end of another academic year, students might be heartened by the results of a new study that shows their opinions of professors matter!

Additionally, the findings show some interesting trends in how promotion and tenure decisions are made.

To the many professors who say that student course evaluation data play too big a role in promotion and tenure decisions, a new study might come as both good news and bad. On the one hand, faculty evaluations seem to be getting more holistic, with deans gathering data from an increasing number of sources to assess professor performance. On the other hand, student evaluation results are playing a role in promotion and tenure decisions at more and more colleges.

The study, out in the American Association of University Professors’ journal Academe, also suggests that collegiality as a criterion for tenure and promotion is on the decline, and that value increasingly is being placed on research and publication — even for professors at teaching-oriented liberal arts institutions. Service work and student advising matter more, too.

The study says it remains to be seen whether such changes make for more meaningful evaluations or better teaching, but that the stakes are higher than ever before.

“Years ago, the process of faculty evaluation carried few or none of the sudden-death implications that characterize contemporary evaluation practices,” the study says. “But now, as the few to be chosen for promotion and tenure become fewer and faculty mobility decreases, the decision to promote or grant tenure can have an enormous impact on a professor’s career.”

It continues: “At the same time, academic administrators are under growing pressure to render sound decisions in the face of higher operating costs, funding shortfalls, and the mounting threat posed by giant corporations that have moved into higher education. Worsening economic conditions have focused sharper attention on evaluation of faculty performance, with the result that faculty members are assessed through formalized, systematic methods.”

The study was conducted by Peter Seldin, professor emeritus of management at Pace University, and J. Elizabeth Miller, associate professor faculty and child studies at Northern Illinois University. Data are based on survey responses regarding promotion and tenure criteria from deans at 410 four-year liberal arts colleges. Researchers compared the results to similar data from 2000 to see how teaching evaluation practices had changed over time.

Seldin said that the data study is part of a larger longitudinal study going back decades, to his dissertation. He originally tracked four-year liberal arts colleges to keep his sample size small, he said, guessing that research and publication would be even more central to faculty evaluations at research institutions.