The Towerlight, November 12, 2009

Photos by Christopher Curry/ The Towerlight Photo illustration by Rachel Fauber/ The Towerlight PROFESSORS Towson University One school, 2,055 professors, thousands of opinions Thom Lieb Mass communication professor “I see it as more of a place for students to vent either positive or negative than something that’s really a useful tool for ‘Oh, I should work on that.'” Douglas Ross Management professor "Some faculty are of the view that they really don’t want high ratings because it's too much in the area of popularity, and what we’re really after is hard work.” ALISSA KATZ Associate News Editor Students working towards a perfect spring schedule are looking to one Web site for advice. Ratemyprofessors.com lets students critique and comment on their profes¬ sors. Subject disciplines, an overall rat¬ ing, an easiness rating, a helpfulness rating and a hotness scale - symbolized by a chili pepper - categorize the profes¬ sors. Students know about the site but may not realize that the professors they evaluate check to see their popularity and overall ratings, too. Health science professor Hubert Nelson, whose overall rating is a 4.6 on the site, said he thinks most students who post do so with strong negative opinions. "I think students who bear a grudge are more likely to report than the great majority of students who are extremely well served by Towson University fac¬ ulty on a day-in-day-out basis," he said. "There is probably also a correlation between good reviews and good grades. Professorial likeability is clearly the most important rating criteria in my opin¬ ion." Nelson said he has taken comments into consideration to improve his class¬ es. "Did I make changes? Yep. On a completely different note, sometimes, students compliment you based on cri¬ teria that you don’t appreciate like ‘he’s easy... tests are based on class notes only... nice guy')," he said. "[It] feels good, but when students talk about really learning something important... that counts." Nelson hopes to improve his status on the site in one more area. "Regarding the hotness ratings..." he said. Mass communication professor Thom Lieb whose rating is 3.5 agrees that students who post are the ones who feel most strongly. "The thing with Ratemyprofessors and anything like that you are only going to hear from the outliers - so the students who really hated the professor of the class, or the student who really loved the professor of the class," he said. "And everyone else pretty much just doesn’t waste their time with it, so you have to be careful how you take it that there’s usually not too much on Ratemyprofessors that you could use to improve a class." Lieb said he thinks that the student evaluations that are filled out at the end of every semester hold more value. Associate professor in the department of occupational therapy and occupation¬ al science Jenna Yeager said she agrees that students who post on the site either love or hate a class. "It’s mostly students who really hated my class or students who really loved my class," she said. "It’s great that stu¬ dents can pass that information on to one another, but the information isn’t that accurate. For example one student last year wrote that I only teach online classes, but this is my first semester teaching a class online." Yeager, who received one of the high¬ est rankings in the health department - and a chili pepper - thinks that students’ comments are inconsistent. She had no comment on her ‘hotness’ rating. Mass communication adjunct faculty See RATED, page 8 Students receive late alert for string of burglaries Off-campus apartments targeted in October, residents not notified until November CARLY WELLHAM Staff Writer TU students were not notified until November 5 about a string of four burglaries in student-filled apartments that began October 11. According to the Baltimore County Police Department, the burglaries at an apartment complex on Charles View Way and The Colony at Kenilworth Apartments occurred during daylight hours and the cases are still under investigation. The Towson University Police Department, respon¬ sible for sending out the crime alerts, said the bur¬ glaries are being handled by the BCPD and they sent the alert as soon as they were aware of the situation. “We send them out when we are made aware of them,” TUPD’s captain Joe Herring said. “I get a report from the county, which talks about crime in the area. When we got that report, we reviewed it, and saw the burglaries at the Colony at Kenilworth." Herring said he was not at liberty to discuss all of the details because the matter is being handled by the BCPD. Several students living in the Colony at Kenilworth were unaware of the burglaries. Sophomore Eric Sparks didn’t know until the beginning of November. See E-MAIL, page 7 Courtesy of maps.google.com Locations of burglaries (shown in red) in relation to Towson University’s campus /