A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, wrote William Shakespeare, who may have reconsidered that line if he had read the following tale.
A tug-of-war has waged in Aggieland over a word in the title of a controversial program that gives professors cash awards based on anonymous student evaluations.
The tussle between Texas A&M University and its overseer, the A&M System, is over "excellence" in the program formerly known as SLATE, or Student Led Awards for Teaching Excellence.
Faculty lobbed several criticisms when the program -- which initially mirrored one of conservative group Texas Public Policy Foundation's "seven breakthrough solutions" -- debuted in 2008, with the chief complaint being that student evaluations alone are not an accurate gauge of excellence.
"Don't insult us by calling it teaching excellence," said Peter Hugill, a faculty member and American Association of University Professors state conference president, who believes student evaluations are one of several factors that need to be considered when gauging excellence.
After two years of low participation in the voluntary program, Texas A&M Provost Karan Watson said in October that the program would get a makeover and name change.
"This is not how you evaluate teaching excellence," Watson said then. "But it is how students can show their appreciation."
Enter SNAP, or Student Nominated Appreciation Program, which gutted the amount of the awards, reduced the number of survey questions and yanked the word "excellence."
"If they would have left the name at SNAP," said Bob Strawser, speaker of the Faculty Senate, "I think the faculty would have found the program much more tenable."
They didn't. The idea apparently was vetoed by the A&M System, and "excellence" reigns again. It's now called SRATE, or Student Recognition Awards for Teaching Excellence.
"We'll hear one thing from the university and one thing from the system," said Chris Esparza, the student Senate's outgoing academic affairs chair, who helped run the program. "We don't want to be pushed around by either side."
Students now are joining the fray.
Who put back 'excellence?'
The program unfolded at Texas A&M University and two other A&M System campuses in fall 2008, just four months after the idea and others were pitched to all the state's university regents at a Texas Public Policy Foundation summit attended by Gov. Rick Perry, who has expressed support for the changes.
The group has rankled Texas academia, as it advocates for more business-like universities that see students as customers and cost less for students and taxpayers. Group members also have questioned the value of some research, for instance, arguing at a forum nine days ago that more than 21,000 scholarly articles have been published on Shakespeare between 1980 and 2006 and another one doesn't have value for the taxpayer.
The student awards program now is mandatory at all A&M System campuses except Texas A&M University. There, participation in the voluntary program has waned. In the fall, only 91 faculty members out of more than 2,800, or about 3 percent, participated.
Of those that did, 25 percent received awards of $2,500. That's an evolution from when the program began and offered awards of between $2,500 and $10,000 to 15 percent of participants. The program, which is paid for by the A&M System, has given out $2.7 million since it began, including $889,000 at Texas A&M University.
Frank Ashley, the A&M System's vice chancellor for academic affairs, is the person assigned by Chancellor Mike McKinney, the head of the A&M System and a former Perry chief of staff, to implement the awards program.
But when asked why the word "excellence" was put back into the program's name and who made the call, he declined to say. "That's above my pay grade," said Ashley, who is the A&M System's top academic official.
Even Richard Box, chairman of the Board of Regents, said he wasn't clued in to why the name was changed. He wasn't chair last fall and suggested asking Watson. The provost, in turn, did not return a message seeking comment.
Esparza, the student, said Watson told him SNAP was unacceptable to the A&M System. Esparza said Ashley was more specific and said the Board of Regents didn't approve. The chairman of the board last fall, Morris Foster, did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Jason Cook, a spokesman for the A&M System, said he did not know who put the word "excellence" back into the program or why.
In a statement, he said, "I am not in a position to discuss specific conversations that may or may not have taken place due to the fact that the revisions of the teaching excellence program have resulted from the feedback from many faculty, staff, students and administrators."
Students issue ultimatum
The student senate in April passed a resolution in a unanimous voice vote that gave the A&M System an ultimatum: Either give the students control of what to name the program, or the student senate no longer will take part in helping to run it.
The student senate receives raw data on a spreadsheet from the university, and it narrows down the list based on criteria they decide. Last year, it made a 60 percent student response rate a requirement for eligibility and that teachers receive an average of at least four on a 16-question survey based on a five-point scale.
Esparza, a political science major, said he's not sure what he would want the name to be but that it shouldn't have the words "teaching excellence" in it.
He cited alumni group The Association of Former Students' program that gives teaching awards that are more comprehensive, including factoring in student evaluations in addition to peer and supervisor evaluations.
"To call our award a measure of excellence based solely on student evaluations is an insult to the other program," Esparza said.
That's a sonnet to the ears of faculty members like Hugill.
"Names are important," he said.
So the bard, at least in academia, was wrong?
Hugill evaded the question: "We shouldn't be talking about Shakespeare around here, you know."
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