I walked in this morning to find the long-awaited (long-dreaded in my case) teaching evaluation comments for spring.

I've finally decided on the removing-a-band-aid approach: read them fast and right away, and then try not to obsess over any negative comments.

Well, there really weren't any this time, aside from a few:

"soils class was at an inconvenient time." (Too bad, so sad. We need to have SOME 8 am classes or else we cannot schedule the rooms. And frankly, a 4 pm lecture (the other option) would be inconvenient for ME.)

Complaints from pre-meds that ecology should not be required. Whatever. I don't set the requirements. And there is such a thing as being well-rounded. I get this complaint both in person and on evaluations a lot. I don't know...do people in the humanities complain about being asked to take natural sciences? Do bio majors complain about being asked to take humanities classes? (Wait, wait, don't answer that one...I already know, having heard all of the groans of displeasure from a student being "made" to take a theater appreciation class. Just wait until you're 40 or so, dude, then you will realize, "Wow, there's a whole big world of stuff out there to learn about! And I have so little time left!")

The usual "there was toooooooo muuuuuuuuucccccchhhh innnnnnnforrrrrmation!" for the non-majors class. (Again, whatever. They didn't see what I WANTED to teach and cut out in the interests of time).

But I did have some good comments, including my much-treasured, "You know, I never thought science could be interesting before I took this class" from one in the non majors class. So I must be doing something right.