This article is about student evaluation of college teaching. It presents a judgment: Students should ex press their opinions about teaching openly, candidly, and systematically. It proposes topics to which students should address themselves. Students are not, and should not be, the sole evaluators of teaching. Self-judgments and the opinions of col leagues, division chairmen, and deans illustrate the va riety of significant sources of information about teach ing worth. Far too frequently, however, student evalua tions have been ignored, yet that assistance is too valu able to lose. Students now dare to trespass into the domain of the dean of students (a domain in which they have exercised greater control longer than in any other) and insist upon reforms in student life and regulation. They also have challenged many long time prerogatives of administrators and the very nature of collegiate governance in this coun try. Who shall be in charge? The answer to that question is being resolved in favor of diversity. The student voice is being added to the discussions of institutional purpose and program. At the heart of the collegiate enterprise is the fac ulty. Often it determines who will be taught, usually de cides what will be taught, almost always selects the means by which instruction will take place and who will do the teaching. The rise in faculty prestige and power has produced many beneficial consequences but not all have been unblemished blessings.1 Not the least of the detrimental results is the reluctance of faculty members to permit the judgments of informed laymen (that is, anyone not properly certified as a member of the aca demic priesthood) to influence the construction of cur riculum or the evaluation of instruction. Students are now stepping onto even this most hal lowed ground. As the direct recipients of instruction they know which procedures and styles help them learn and those which do not, those which produce positive feelings toward subject matter and those which dampen or ex tinguish the feelings of joy in learning. Further, most would affirm that they can tell rather quickly which pro fessors are sensitive to their needs and those who are not, which professors convey information or concepts or skills easily and clearly and those who do not, which professors are enthusiastic about their subjects and those who are not. Informal student assessment of instruction takes place continually, and will as long as there are students ! But students are no longer waiting for permission to be heard publicly and candidly on this matter. Colleges may avoid the issue of teacher effectiveness. Students will not. The time for systematic and open evaluation of teacher performance is here. Students can help. For some decades a few faculty groups have tapped student opinion to provide insight into instructor be havior.2 More are doing so now. In the development of any plan for student evaluation of college teaching, four clusters of significant issues form a structure within which one can then proceed to raise specific questions and employ devices, such as eval uation questionnaires, germane to a particular institu tion. The clusters are: the college teacher, the teacher and the discipline, the teacher and the course, and the teacher and the student. The College Teacher. What are the characteristics of an effective teacher? Can they be known? How does on effective teacher differ from a poor one? No one would suggest that effective instruction is accomplished simply by a bright smile and a self-confident manner. On the other hand research does indicate that the personal char acteristics of the teacher are an important factor.3 For example, if given a choice, students tend to choose instructors who accept students as they are. No normal person deliberately sets out to find someone who will ig nore him, berate or ridicule him. Students are persons, too. Yet, they often do not have the freedom to reject a hostile instructor. Hostility on the part of instructors is not only unconscionable. It maliciously interferes with communication and the business of learning. Without suggesting that every teacher must be a par agon of virtue, certain traits have been identified which do aid in teacher-student communication, increase student satisfaction with the instructor and the subject matter, and in some instances seem to nurture greater student achievement.4