Because we go to ASU - each classroom a pageant of well-proportioned faces and accessorized outfits, each day as sunny and cloudless as the next - we tend to take beauty for granted. Though we've heard a thousand times that we're "not Harvard," perhaps we can take a little comfort in the fact that part of not being Harvard means New Year's Eve barbecues, sunbathing in February and hot professors.
OK, maybe not hot professors ... that's just silly, right? I'm sure none of us even think of our professors' aesthetic physical qualities while they lecture. We're just promising, wide-eyed students, tightly focused on the material being discussed.
But according to a recent University of Texas-Austin study, this is not the case. The researchers found that the most attractive college professors consistently received higher scores on student evaluations than their average-looking counterparts. Because there is no evidence that suggests beauty and teaching ability are related, it seems students are beauty-biased.
An article about the study, printed in The Chronicle of Higher Education, also included many anecdotes from professors who were harassed by their students. One female student wrote her handsome professor an e-mail saying she wanted to go over his lecture notes in bed with him. One male student wrote his well-built economics teacher to say simply, "You are really, really, really hot."
The professors did not respond to these students. They took the words as somewhat complimentary, probably blushed a little and went on with the semester.
This situation is unfair. I'll generalize students here: We are very quick to find the chinks in the armor of our professors. In a large lecture class last week, my professor spelled a word wrong on the board, and the room was all whispers and giggles. I've been in classes during which students commented rudely on the TA's dress or haircut or accent and stooped so low as to point out those alleged flaws in evaluations.
Imagine the situation reversed, if professors could send suggestive e-mails to unsuspecting, uncomfortable students. When posting grades, there would be space for comments such as "student wore ugly shoes" or "I'd like to spend time in bed with this student." What's worse, the professors would never be held accountable for the behavior. We'd have to shrug these things off, realizing they were just part of being a student. This is, in fact, the precise situation many professors face.
It's no secret that attractive people often get preferential treatment. (How else might Jennifer Love Hewitt's career be explained?) It happens all the time in Hollywood. It happens at bars. And though it's sad to see proof that this bias has entrenched itself into academia, it isn't very surprising.
It matters, though, in the sense that we employ these teachers; the tuition we pay helps fund their salaries. Our evaluations are instrumental in determining professors' ranks within the department, what classes are continued or cancelled and other changes to be made in subsequent semesters.
Because of this, it is our duty to not discriminate superficially when we review their instruction for the university.
Teacher evaluations are important, but this study indicates they should perhaps be less so.
As all biases need to be checked, so does the beauty bias. The findings in the UT study amount to a subtle workplace discrimination, and if this disturbing phenomenon perpetuates itself in the classroom, valuable professors who purposefully entered the teaching field, and not the modeling industry, have little power to change the trend.
Since we depend on our professors and teachers to grade us fairly, they should have full confidence that we evaluate them in kind.
Emily Lyons is a journalism senior. Reach her at emily.lyons@asu.edu.
