MoWest makes professor reviews public to help students pick classes  

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (News-Press NOW) -- Some Missouri schools are now making it easier for students to see how professors are rated — and they can check it all online. 

That includes Missouri Western State University and Missouri State University. News-Press NOW also reached out to Northwest Missouri State University to see if they’re using the program, but we haven’t heard back yet.  

“We had other measures available to students online so they can see how faculty were performing, but recently it came back from the Secretary of State, so all schools are changing around to where they can actually post this,” MoWest Provost Jay Johnson said.  

Students will now use a system called Anthology to rate their classes and professors. The scores get averaged out and turned into a rating for future students to see. 

Johnson said he idea behind the resource is to provide accountability and give students better tools to make decisions about their schedules. 

“We reached out to a friend of mine at Missouri State to see what they were doing, and we also contacted other schools in the state to ensure that our practice wasn’t anything beyond or below what the bar is,” Johnson said.  

Johnson also said MoWest tested the system over the summer and now hopes students will use it to choose the classes that work best for them.  

“We used to do grade distribution, but we don’t anymore because that’s not an accurate measure of how a professor’s actually performing,” Johnson said.  

Johnson said both students and faculty know about the change, and he hopes students see it as part of MoWest’s effort to give them the best education possible.