Rate my Professor grades professors on criteria such as helpfulness, clarity and easiness. It also ranks professors by how many times they’ve been rated as well as allows students to give professors a chili pepper if the student finds the professor attractive. Over 68 percent of SRU students rely on Rate my Professor to schedule their classes, according to a non-scientific Twitter poll conducted by the Rocket.
The following professors have been ranked as top of their respective categories.
Highest Rated- All Time: Dr. Joseph Merhaut
Dr. Merhaut is a special education professor who has been rated almost 40 times by students and has a 5.0 average on ratemyprofessors.com. He has a 5.0 in helpfulness, a 4.9 in clarity and a 4.3 easiness score.
On his rating, Dr. Merhaut said that he’s usually a shy person, but credits his high rating to his love and respect for his students.
“Without my students, I have no job,” he said. “It’s important for professors to remember that. You should always give your students time and treat them with respect.”
Dr. Merhaut also says that he is very personable, and models his behavior off of his mentor, and undergraduate professor at SRU, Dr. Dennis Fair.
He said that passion is important in the field that he’s in, and he often relates his lectures back to his own life, as he has a daughter with a disability.
Most Rated: Dr. Roger Solano
Dr. Solano is a business management and economics professor who has been teaching at SRU since 2009. He has been rated 188 times, has a 4.3 overall score, a helpfulness rating of 4.5, a clarity rating of 4.2 and a 3.6 easiness score.
Dr. Solano said when he first came to SRU, he wasn’t effectively communicating with his students, and that his teacher evaluations were terrible.
“Students come in with negative perceptions on math classes in particular,” he said. “When my evaluations came back so badly, I knew I had to do everything I could to improve my teaching.”
Solano said that now his teaching is much more effective, and he tries to present the material in an understandable way. He also said that he injects humor into his lectures to break students’ perceptions on math courses.
“What makes my classes successful is that I care about student success,” he said. “I call it 100 percent achievement, which means that 100 percent of students should understand 100 percent of the material by the end of the course.”
Dr. Solano said that he uses Rate my Professor as another means of evaluation, and encourages students to rate him using the site.
“I teach a math-based class, so of course not everyone is going to love you,” he said. “As long as the bad reviews are not the majority, I don’t take it personally.
2nd Most Rated : Dr. Kurt Pitluga
Dr. Pitluga is an art history professor who has been rated over 130 times, with an overall score of 4.6. He has a helpfulness rating of 4.4, a clarity rating of 4.7 and an easiness rating of 4.3.
Dr. Pitluga is a 4th generation college professor. His father taught at Edinboro University, and his daughter is also a teacher.
“Teaching is in my blood,” he said. “I know not everyone is interested in art history, but I try to make things more digestible for students who aren’t interested. Many of my students go on to take other art history classes.”
On having a chili pepper on Rate my Professor, he joked that he must have blind students, but that he appreciates it.
“Teaching to a lecture hall with 110 faces is always challenging, but if my students leave with a taste of world art and the incentive to travel, then I’ve done my job.”
Hottest : Dr. Danette Dimarco
Dr. Dimarco is an English professor who has 60 ratings, and an overall rating of 4.9. She has a 5.0 in helpfulness, a 4.9 in clarity and an easiness rating of 3.9
She said that she’s never looked at Rate my Professor because she is nervous about what people would say.
On her hotness rating, Dr. Dimarco said that it was good to know, but that she doesn’t take it seriously.
On her persona in the classroom, Dimarco said that she enjoys what she does and likes when her students want to work hard.
She credited her success as a professor to always switching things up in the classroom.
“I’ve never been apathetic about my classes,” she said. “I’m constantly resolving issues and trying new things if I feel that my teaching’s ineffective.”
Most Helpful : Professor Nora Ambrosio
Professor Ambrosio is a dance professor who has has eight ratings, and an overall score of 4.9. She has a 5.0 in helpfulness, a 4.9 in clarity and a 3.5 in easiness.
“It’s so funny that I was rated so highly, because I am so strict,” Ambrosio said. “My students can’t miss more than two classes, and I make my students work hard and think critically.”
Ambrosio said her students must like her teaching because she is very clear and organized in her instruction, and she can tell that her students appreciate it.
She also said that her passion for dance helps her ability to teach, and her students can’t believe her love for dance and teaching dance.
“I doubt myself all the time,” she said, “but I have to trust myself that I pick and choose material that is important, while encouraging my students to go beyond and do extra research.”
The article previously named Dr. Pitluga as the most rated professor. The current most rated professor is Dr. Roger Solano.
