In a groundbreaking new initiative from UBC’s Planning and Institutional Research Team, professors were asked to complete Professor Evaluation of Evaluations (PEEs).
A derivative of the largely-despised and most-likely-never-read Student Experience of Instruction (SEI) surveys, Plathanniel McPlanson of the aforementioned Research Team described these PEEs as “like, literally survey-inception, dawg.”
McPlanson then went on to discuss how the critically-acclaimed film Interstellar (2014) and “a buttload of funky mushrooms” informed his team’s creative process.
“Well, we couldn’t get professors to comment on their SEIs because those are ‘confidential,’ so I had the bangin’ idea to get their feedback on Rate My Professors reviews. At first I wanted to film it as one of those reaction-style YouTube videos, and also maybe add clips of Subway Surfers on one side of the screen, but my boss said no because ‘TikTok is where the money is,’ but then I got locked out of TikTok because I forgot I was using a VPN to access American Netflix,” McPlanson revealed in an interview with The Ubyssey.
After sending 112 emails, calling 17 different offices and being put on hold for a total of 173 minutes, we were able to touch base with multiple real professors who did, in fact, take time to fill out their PEEs.
Professor Hank E. Panké, who specializes in teaching Crocheting Whimsical Little Creatures at the 300 level, was delighted with his results and found taking the time to read his Rate My Professors reviews very valuable.
“Thanks to this exercise,” Professor Panké said when asked to reflect on his coveted five-star rating, “I now know that I’ve been putting way too much effort into teaching. Some of my colleagues have a ⅕ on Rate My Professors or a ‘zero per cent would take again’… What am I working so hard for? I’m tenured.”
Professor Panké then cut our meeting short to call someone who seemed to be his travel agent as he put on a pair of Pit Vipers and muttered about giving his students an “extended reading week” for “the whole month of February and probably March.”
Next, we were able to get in contact with one of UBC’s most elusive professors, Dr. Vanna Pire, who teaches Blood Moon Sacrifices 311 and Learning to Echolocate 104. Dr. Pire, whose office is located in an “ancient cavern,” accessible only by navigating UBC’s network of restricted underground tunnels blindfolded while feeling the sides of the wall for directional runes (still nicer than a place in Buchanan Tower), told us that she was working on a way to access the names and locations of every student to ever leave her a bad review so she could “put a curse on their entire bloodline.”
“I fear that filling out my PEE is not enough. Who is taking action? Who is stitching shut the voodoo-doll-equivalent mouths of these ungrateful kids?” Dr. Pire was smiling intensely, but we are not sure if she was joking.
She also instructed us to publish the following warning: “Calvin, I know it was you. It’s not my fault your ears are too small to properly maximize your echolocation capabilities. This isn’t a one-star class, I’m not a one-star prof, but you sure are a one-star student. I hope you drop out.”
Before we were able to complete our interview, Dr. Pire excused herself to tend to her “rat army” and said “Riverdale based that one episode on me, you know.”
Finally, Professor Richard Wad who teaches a by-application-only upper-level seminar on “Devil’s Advocating” and, according to Workday, literally nothing else, called us to request an interview in order to express his feelings about reading his Rate My Professors reviews.
“I wasn’t aware that disparaging innocent and generous purveyors of education and knowledge on the internet was trendy.” Professor Wad has been chronically offline for the entirety of his educational career and, according to UBC IT, has over 40,000 unread emails. “I’ve never used an iPhone, I’ve never written a Twit, and I sure as Hell think it should be illegal to write down things that I say and put them on some page in the name of defamation.”
When asked why documenting things he has said in a university classroom setting would be categorized as “defamation,” Professor Wad punched a hole through his office wall.
“First, the university tells me I can’t keep my scotch in my desk drawer. Now, these ungrateful brats are allowed to insult me and destroy my image? Do they know who I am?”
After a 30-minute rant where Professor Wad expressed deep discontent for being “held accountable for his actions,” he emphasized that we, as students, could collectively “shove [our] Rate My Professors reviews up [our] asses.” Professor Wad eventually admitted he did not actually access the PEE survey because you had to “click too many buttons to get to the page.”
Though I, as a journalist, am tasked with staying impartial to these matters — I have to agree. Why so many buttons?
In conclusion, McPlanson declined to share the results of the PEE surveys, citing confidentiality concerns, but he also left a miscellaneous-food-stained copy on the table of the coffee shop we met up at, so finder’s keepers.
Astonishingly, 90 per cent of profs actually declined to fill out their PEEs, despite emailing their students an average of 13.69 times per semester to complete their SEIs.
From the 10 per cent of staff who deigned to reply, 15 per cent said they would “never change their pedagogical practices because get rekt noob *dab*,” 40 per cent responded that “surveys are super duper cool, please don’t fire me” and the remaining 45 per cent presented the UBC Planning and Institutional Research Team with what appears to be a manifesto, complete with claims that they will be “riding at dawn” and that “Hellfire will rain” if they are ever made to fill out another survey which forces them to read all the worst things students have ever said about them. There are also a lot of therapy bills stapled to the back page of the report, totalling upwards of $10,000.
For unrelated reasons, tuition has once again been raised.
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