#38 Shallow, callow students

"Daniel Hamermesh, a professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin, and Amy Parker, one of his students, found that attractive professors consistently outscore their less comely colleagues by a significant margin on student evaluations of teaching. The findings, they say, raise serious questions about the use of student evaluations as a valid measure of teaching quality."

I was really surprised at this one. I don't ever remember having a good looking professor! Maybe it was my majors. And they were so old--maybe 35 or 40! Grad assistants, lab assistants, yes. But not professors.

And the men are more "objects" than the women. The study is inconclusive on whether better looking people may actually be better teachers. It also suggests the bar is set pretty low for "good looks."