Principles and Practice of Management Dr. Aravind Banakar –

Principles and Practice of Management Case (20 Marks) The new dean of the graduate business school at Gibson University was anxious to build student morale, which he had found to be rather low due to the autocratic regime of his predecessor. After a lengthy meeting with the governing board of the student organization, he agreed to their request to allow a student-developed and -administered faculty evaluation program to be instituted. The students wanted to publish the results, so that they could be used in promotion and tenure decisions and also demonstrate to the faculty where they stood in student opinion of their classroom performance. One of the students’ central arguments was that many faculty members were poor classroom teachers, though they might be good at research and writing.

Another was the student opinion that several faculty members were remote and difficult to see after class. The dean believed the idea a good one, and one which would help establish his popularity with the student government. He didn’t believe the faculty would mind the evaluation, and the results could be used by department chairpersons as a part of the faculty development process, Because the dean thought highly of the idea, he didn’t bother to discuss it with any of the department chairpersons or other faculty members. It was announced in the student newspaper the following week, and the forms were distributed in classes during that week. One of the school’s best known full professors, who had a worldwide reputation for incisive writing and provocative research, received a poor rating because of a foreign accent which was sometimes difficult to understand and his impatience with what he considered stupid questions.

Many senior faculty members received inadequate ratings. The highest ratings seemed to go to young, no tenured faculty who were close to the students in age, grooming, and behavior. The uproar among the majority of the faculty was deafening, and the dean was confronted by a committee of department heads who told him the rating system had to go or he would lose significant numbers of his most qualified faculty members and department heads.

Answer the following question. Q1. Did the dean introduce the program effectively? Explain. Q2. What should the dean do about this ultimatum? Q3. Discuss the pros and cons of student-run faculty evaluations. Q4. What implications are there in these programs for the business world?

Global Study Solutions Dr. Aravind Banakar –