weaknesses of case studies. The selected case may well not be fully generalizable. Washington
& Jefferson College is a small (1450 students), liberal arts college in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Undergraduate instruction is the chief mission of the institution and its faculty. Due to the size
and mission of the institution, certain assumptions about the shared priority of teaching may not
fully generalize to other institutions. At the same time, though, the presence of faculty concerns
about course evaluations at an institution of this size and mission suggests that such concerns
may well be universal. After all, one might imagine that an institution that overtly values
teaching might be the most welcoming environment possible for course evaluation. The initial
and continuing faculty hesitation suggests that the perceived power imbalance may well be
generalizable.
A related qualification has to do with the perspective of this paper. This paper explores
the question of a campus-wide implementation of course evaluation. As a result, the focus of
this model is institutional, not departmental or individual. This broader perspective is due both
to institutional size and the responsibilities of the author. At a smaller campus, course evaluation
makes better sense when conducted across the college, rather than department by department.
Also, the author has principal responsibility for campus-wide assessment efforts. As a result,
this model is not focused specifically on the particular needs and constraints of political science
departments. Instead, the hope is that a generalized model of course evaluation will serve the
needs of political science at the same time that it serves the needs of biology. The power-sharing
dynamics of the proposed model should be of interest to those seeking more egalitarian
structures within academia more broadly.
A final qualification has to do with the fact that this course evaluation project is ongoing.
The findings and observations are necessarily tentative since the work will be continuing.
Though these observations are not completed, they do reflect work that has been ongoing for
2
Convention