Colleague wants student evaluations before he fills out a reference for another teaching position. Evaluations were poor. What do I do?

Hey everyone,

I’m posting here because I’m in a fairly unique situation. I was a visiting instructor at a small liberal arts college this past academic year and it went horribly for me. Part of the reason that I only learned recently was that I had sleep apnea the entire time. Daytime fatigue, cognitive issues, etc. I’m also a 4th year ABD candidate at the R2 where I’m currently a student and changed my graduation from May to August instead because I couldn’t focus at all (also a sleep apnea symptom on top of my other pre existing conditions. Read my post history if you want to learn about the others.)

I skim read my latest evals and had to stop because I got physically sick doing so (that’s despite not reading them in full). There were also some inaccuracies on feedback, such as a student stating that I cancelled office hours a lot. In reality, I made office hours remote if I had to be at my R2 campus at all. On the off chance I did cancel, I would extend them the next day to make up for it.

The reason all of this is a problem is because I recently interviewed for a lecturer position at a regional college and one of the colleagues at this small liberal arts college wants me to share evaluations I’ve had in the past so he had objective criteria to go off of. I asked him if seeing my teaching statement would potentially be enough or not. Hopefully that will work since I contextualized a lot of scores but still.

Since my scores and evaluations were poor (and I don’t want to read them in full at all since they make me physically sick), I not only don’t want to send them, but I want to pretend that it never happened almost. What should I do if he still insists on me sharing evaluations if my recent teaching statement isn’t enough?

You need to comply with the requirements set by the potential employer. Also, look at these harsh evaluations as feedback you will use for improvement. Mentally approach it as constructive and accept the challenge to overcome and turnaround in your next position. I suggest discussing the specifics with the placement advisor you’ve been working with the past year. They know you and will be better able to guide you with framing a narrative than CC can. Best wishes. Closing thread.

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