Some faculty members at Texas A&M University will be $10,000 richer next month, and they’ll have their students to thank.</p>
<p>The Texas university system is awarding bonuses ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 to faculty members who received the highest grades on end-of-semester student evaluations. The competition is being held at the flagship campus in College Station, as well as campuses in Kingsville and Prairie View, and will be extended to all of the system’s nine campuses this spring.</p>
<p>The system’s chancellor, Michael D. McKinney, believes the bonuses are a good way to recognize dedicated instructors. Critics counter that they could lead to grade inflation and make professors cater to students. “We object to this idea that students are consumers and the customer is always right. They don’t realize we’re not selling our courses,” says Clint W. Magill, a professor of plant pathology and speaker of the Faculty Senate at College Station.</p>
<p>But in a neighboring stateOklahomathat has been experimenting with similar bonuses, educators say there has no evidence of grade softening.</p>
<p>Professors in Texas do not automatically become competitors; they have to enter the contest to win. While the debate on the value or the corrupting influence of the bonuses swirls, 11 students here who are charged with selecting their campus’s winners will gather around a conference table this week to start sifting through applications from the finalists.</p>
<p>“We don’t pay our teachers nearly enough, and this is one way I saw to get money to them and empower students to brag on their teachers,” says Dr. McKinney, who is also a family physician. The bonuses won’t be used in tenure or promotion decisions, and no one will be punished for a negative evaluation.</p>
<p>About 300 of College Station’s 1,800 teaching faculty members applied, along with about 100 each at the Kingsville and Prairie View campuses. The chancellor says he is seeking $12-million from the Texas Legislature to extend the program for another two years.</p>
<p>Dr. McKinney says he got the idea from the University of Oklahoma, which has been running a similar pilot program in its engineering and business schools for the past four semesters.</p>
<p>Oklahoma awards between $5,000 and $10,000 to participating engineering professors who score in the top 5 percent on their semester-end student evaluations. Those who score in the next 15 percent receive half those amounts. Similar bonuses are offered for top-rated business professors.</p>
<p>Thomas L. Landers, dean of engineering at Oklahoma, says the recipients include professors who are known for being tough graders. “So far, there’s no evidence that the awards are changing anyone’s grading behaviors,” he says.