"Harsh Personality"

It's a new semester. And the first thing waiting for me in my box this week? A fresh batch of faculty evaluations from the last semester. The sight of the envelope always makes my palms sweat a little bit, but then I take a deep breath and open them, and it never fails that I breathe a big sigh of relief and get a good laugh. They are so predictable at this point that I don't know why I ever think to worry about them.

There are the expected and laughable responses to the question, "Concerning the course, what can be done to improve its quality?"

"Not make it a required course"
"Less writing"
"Fewer essays"

Then the responses to the other questions, about me personally as a teacher, crack me up because for every student who writes "Very friendly, open, and helpful," there's another who writes, "Stop being so intimidating." Then one student says, "Very passionate and interesting" and another says, "Monotone and boring." (Ouch!) Sometimes I wonder if we were all really in the same class together when I read "She's very calm and chill" on one page, versus "Really needs to relax and ease up on being so strict" on the next.

So much of it obviously boils down to personality, both theirs and mine, and of course they are not always going to click. And even though the evaluations are supposed to be anonymous, I can usually pin point who likely said what, and what exactly prompted them to say it. That's why it didn't hurt my feelings a bit, and I even got a giggle out of the one that said I have a "harsh personality."

Especially when I flipped to the next evaluation in the pile, which complimented me on my "patience with frustrating students."