SOS forms ready for faculty after delay in process

Student Opinion Surveys are now available for faculty and staff after a week and a half delay in the process.

The delay was the result of a turnover in the Registrar's office. To accommodate the personnel change, the university had to hire a temporary staff member to take over.

Provost Michael Gealt addressed the delay at the Jan. 21 Academic Senate meeting. Afterwards, Gealt said the temp did not understand the SOS form filing process and needed to be trained, adding to the delay.

The person previously in charge of completing the SOS evaluation process worked in the Registrar's office for 10 years, said Mary Meier, the associate director of Institutional Research.

"Naturally, when you have a new person, it takes a little longer," she said. "Plus, we had five less working days in the end of last year because of the extended winter break."

Meier said the delay is not out of the ordinary, however, the office typically has the SOS forms finished by Jan. 20. They were only a week behind schedule, Meier said.

SOS forms are the university's main system for evaluating tenured, tenure-track and fixed-term faculty members' courses and classroom methodology. The forms are entirely based on student opinion of the professor, the course and the material presented in class.