ess wasn't unique to the
nursing course and took me to the NERD office to see how the medical
students evaluation was conducted.

"I was appalled. Throughout my training, it was stressed how important
the process is. At the colleges I attended, they were taken
seriously--a representative from the student government would sign out
the required number of forms from the administration official and bring
them to the classroom.

"All teachers or instructors had to leave the room while we filled out
our evaluation. They were collected, counted and brought back to the
administration official. The data was given to the instructor but
never the evaluations themselves because student confidentiality was
considered to be an important step in the process.

"In contrast, at Belmont the evaluation process is a joke--even the,
er, enriched acronym, SmurFFs, this university has chosen to call the
evaluation forms for student feedback attests to this."

"Were you ever given specific instructions relating to the
evaluations?" asked Diana.

"Yes, Dr. Lyle Stone, at the beginning of the course, told us that
there would be evaluations periodically and that it was very important
for us to fill them out since they would provide feedback on the course
content and the instructors. He also stressed that they would be
confidential.

"I remember being impressed, thinking, Oh great! Then instead of a
proper evaluation procedure, the forms were left in piles at the end of
rows to be filled out during the lecture or taken home to do. Just get
them back before the end of the week, they told us."

"Did you ever initiate a conversation with Lyle Stone regarding how you
felt about document examiners and student confidentiality?"

"Yes, right after the lecture, the first part of this May, Roz Peel and
a couple of other students and I went up to him after lecture.

"We told him that we were concerned that our student evaluations, which
we had been told were confidential, and which we had been told had a
specific purpose, had been sent outside the university without
permission or knowledge of the students."

"Would you be referring to these documents?" Trenchant got up from her
chair and walked around the table until she came to where Jennifer was
sitting and handed her exhibits 3 and 4--the SmurFFs Jimbo Jones was
reported to have discovered.

"Yes."

"What happened then?"

"He said that no student evaluations were sent out and tha