The controversial past, present, and future of student evaluations

In order to start this panel and provide some context to the issue of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs), this paper will discuss their evolution from the 1920s to today. In particular, I will investigate how something so seemingly innocent and good-natured has gained the ability to invoke strong emotions of anger, fear, and sadness. I will investigate the evolution of the types of questions asked, as well as the intended and actual uses of SETs over the years. This will allow us to better understand why we still need SETs and what merits we can find from them. From there, I will then discuss the biased nature of SETs, the cause of such biases, and how we as educators can deal with bias in the classroom before it becomes an issue on the evaluation. Finally, I will introduce the current panel, its goals, and speakers.