Washington University has provided a major incentive for students to fill out their course evaluations. This semester, a donor will provide a donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of greater St. Louis and Eastern Missouri for each student’s completed evaluation.

The campaign will donate one dollar for each evaluation filled out and that amount will increase to two dollars after 70 percent of the evaluations have been completed and five dollars after 80 percent of the evaluations have been completed.

As of November 29 at 1 p.m., $11,850 had been raised. Dean Henry Biggs, who organized the campaign, said that as of post-Thanksgiving break, evaluation participation was close to eighty percent. The figure is ten percentage points higher than that of the same time in the previous year.

“[The campaign] is about what Wash. U. is willing to do for people outside of the Wash. U. community and my sense is that students are really responding to that,” said Biggs.

Tying the course evaluations to a community service fundraiser has indeed caught students’ attention.

The School of Law has the highest completion percentage, followed by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Medical School and the University College in what Biggs termed “a very tight race.”

“I’m always the person who fills out my course evaluations at the very end of the semester,” said sophomore Ashley Johnson, who had already filled out her course evaluations. “Usually they have to send me a million e-mails to keep reminding me, but because the evaluations were tied to Big Brothers Big Sisters, I felt more inclined to do it sooner to help out.”

Likewise, junior Brandon Buyers said that, although he typically fills out his course evaluations regardlessly, the campaign captured his attention.

In past semesters, students had been offered extra credit as an incentive to fill out their evaluations. For example, students taking Introduction to Psychology this semester receive one extra point on their final exam for completing their course evaluation. However, the BBBS campaign seems to have had better results.

“The increased participation is amazing, truly,” said Biggs. “If the numbers continue to pick up, things could get even more expensive for the donor.”

The benefactor for the campaign has asked to remain anonymous so that the campaign focus remained on the community impact. Biggs said that the decision was made to donate the money to BBBS of Greater St. Louis and Eastern Missouri, rather than the on-campus BBBS program run through the Campus Y, so that the proceeds could extend beyond the University.

“The idea of [this campaign] is how you make an impact outside of the Washington University bubble, not just how we impact ourselves,” said Biggs, who added that the University chapter of BBBS will also benefit from proceeds that go towards the greater St. Louis chapter. “[The donations] are not really rippling, frankly, if the ripple doesn’t go beyond our property.”

Biggs hopes to have a BBBS check ceremony in January after the final course evaluation results are tabulated.

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