TCC Professor Among Nation's Best

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (August 30, 2012) – Tallahassee Community College professor Susan Wessner has been named one of the nation’s top professors by RateMyProfessors.com, the largest online destination for college professor ratings. Wessner, who teaches development mathematics in TCC’s Division of Academic Support, was chosen as the No. 12 junior college professor by RateMyProfessors.com’s community of student contributors. RateMyProfessors.com released its annual rankings on Wednesday. “I am so excited about this honor,” said Wessner. “It means so much more because my students are the ones who are rating me. Teaching (developmental math) is awesome because you can start with a student who has never performed well in math and, in one semester, turn them into a math nerd! “Once they understand the concepts and get the problems right, almost all students really start to like math. That is what makes it all worthwhile - seeing the smiles on their faces when they succeed." Wessner received 84 individual ratings from TCC students and had an overall quality score of 4.9 out of 5.0. “There’s no higher honor for teachers and schools than to be praised by the students who are being impacted by their influence every day,” said Carlo DiMarco, Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Development, mtvU. “We extend our sincere congratulations to all of the professors, universities and junior colleges on our top lists.” RateMyProfessors.com is built for college students, by college students. It is the highest-trafficked U.S. college professor rating site (comScore), reaching its highest-trafficked months ever in April 2012 (7.5 million unique visitors) and May 2012 (7.4 million unique visitors). Owned and operated by MTV’s college network, mtvU, the site consists entirely of student-generated ratings of current or former professors, featuring more than 7,500 schools, 1.7 million professors and 14 million ratings. RateMyProfessors.com reaches 6 million college students on average each month. Top 25 Professors at Junior Colleges Sam Blank, Communication, Borough of Manhattan Community College Tony Smith, Communication, St. Petersburg College (All Campuses) John W. Todd, Communication, Miami Dade College (All Campuses) Raj Bose, Business, University of Phoenix Hawaii Campus Margie Lewkowicz, Mathematics, Georgia Perimeter College – Decatur Ronald Walker, Communication, Miami Dade College (All Campuses) Luis Beltran, Mathematics, Miami Dade College (All Campuses) Melinda Shoemaker, Psychology, Broward College (All Campuses) Lynne Vazquez-Rizzo, Mathematics, Ocean County College Ryan Adams-Barton, Social Science, Miami Dade College (All Campuses) Charles Sidun, Biology, Community College of Allegheny County Susan Wessner, Mathematics, Tallahassee Community College Ted Wiecek, Mathematics, Truman College Mehrdad Mahmoudi Zarandi, Mathematics, Ivy Tech Community College – Bloomington Kristen Cole, Psychology, San Diego City College Kyle Barbieri, Political Science, Georgia Perimeter College – Decatur Ellen Feig, English, Bergen Community College David Demko, Sociology, Miami Dade College (All Campuses) Tracey Magrann, Biology, Saddleback College Douglas Phinney, History, Broward College (All Campuses) Phil Maywalt, Computer Science, Broome Community College Robert Martens, Biology, Brookdale Community College Norman Belleza, Biology, Tidewater Community College Stephen Miciak, College Success, Hillsborough Community College – Tampa Mark Shannon, Communications, Los Angeles Harbor College RateMyProfessors.com Top Lists Ranking Methodology RateMyProfessors.com is the Internet's largest destination for collegiate professor ratings with more than 7,500 schools, 1,700,000 professors and 14,000,000 ratings. The site uses a five-point Likert scale as well as a binary scoring system for students to rate professors. Below is a summary of the overall methodology used to compile the 2011-2012 rankings: Each individual professor rating is first standardized and subsequently the standardized scores for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011 are weighted, putting more weight on recent years and fewer weight on ratings from the past (15 percent for 2009, 25 percent for 2010, and 60 percent for 2011). Using the weighted score, professors are ranked from high to low. Only professors with 30 ratings or more are included to provide statistical significance. In an attempt to break ties, professors with a greater number of ratings were ranked higher; the rationale is that a larger amount of information typically results in an estimate closer to the true parameter. Nevertheless, ties (i.e. professors with the same score and the same number of ratings) still occur. In that case, if two professors are tied for the same place - say 5th - then the next available rank is 7th. It should also be noted that school size does not affect the outcome of the lists nor does it give professors from larger schools an advantage over their corollaries from smaller schools. RateMyProfessors performed a regression analysis on school size vs. number of ratings and found no noteworthy correlation. More information on how this methodology was applied to each category is available here: http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/methodology.jsp. Data analysis was conducted with the help of Professor Wolfgang Jank, Associate Professor in the Department of Decisions, Operations & Information Technologies at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. About mtvU Broadcast to more than 750 college campuses as well as via top cable distributors in 700 college communities nationwide, mtvU reaches nearly 9 million U.S. college students – making it the largest, most comprehensive television network just for college students. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, mtvU can be seen in the dining areas, fitness centers, student lounges and dorm rooms of campuses throughout the U.S., as well as on cable systems from Charter Communications, Verizon FiOS TV, Suddenlink Communications, AT&T u-Verse and nearly 70 others. mtvU is dedicated to every aspect of college life, reaching students everywhere they are: on-air, online and on the campus. mtvU airs music videos from emerging artists that can’t be seen anywhere else, news, student life features and initiatives that give college students the tools to advance positive social change. mtvU is always on campus, with hundreds of events per year, including exclusive concerts, giveaways, shooting mtvU series and more. For more information about mtvU, and a complete programming schedule, visit www.mtvU.com.