f Editorials
A look at good grades
The faculty should take a long, cold look
at the grading study released this week.
The study analyzed grades given during
winter term 1971. It broke grading down to
numbers and percentages and some of the
statistics are shocking.
To start with, it seems the least
academic of all university departments gives
the best grades. The Department of Military
Science and Aerospace Studies (ROTC)
gave 38.2 per cent of its undergraduates A’s
winter term. No one flunked a ROTC class
that term. This lends support to the idea that
ROTC is not academically viable. It should
be remembered, however that the University
has no control over either the curriculum or
faculty of that department.
While lack of University control may be
used as an excuse for lack of standards in
ROTC, it is no excuse for lack of standards in
other University departments.
In Education, 35.5 per cent of all un
dergraduates received A’s winter term. Only
8 per cent received a failing mark. To have
such a discrepency in a department that is
supposedly training people to mold and shape
the lives of children is questionable to say the
least. When 1376 A’s are given out and only 29
N’s, something is wrong. It should be harder
to get an A than an N, not the other way
around.
In contrast to these statistics, the School
of Journalism, often considered more of a
trade school than an academic department,
gave 12.2 per cent of its students a failing
grade while only 15.3 per cent received A’s.
There is no reason why grading stan
dards should differ as much as they do
between journalism and education. Are
students in education smarter than those in
journalism or do journalism teachers have
higher standards?
There are reasons for this proliferation
of good grades. Some teachers consider the
grading system archaic and not reflective of
academic achievement or learning. They are
right. But it is childish to assume that the
grading system can be changed by handing
out good grades like candy. If the recent
change in the grading system, voted in by the
faculty, is any indication of what they think
reform is, other groups should begin looking
at the system and work out new proposals.
Another reason for the higher grades
might be that students are better prepared to
do college work when they come to the
University. The growing number of students
who meet entrance requirements and the
University’s new program that will allow
high school seniors to take college level
courses before they arrive are indicators.
Even now many freshmen become
disillusioned with the University when they
find that their first year courses are often re
hashes of their high school classes. If this is
true, shouldn’t the faculty make their
courses more challenging and difficult?
This is not to say that teachers should use
the new grading system to arbitrarily
prevent people from getting a college
education. But the grades should be more
equitable so that a grade in one department
means the same as the same grade in
another.
Academic freedom is delicately
balanced as it is now. The faculty should
undertake reforms on its own rather than
force the department heads and ad
ministration to put pressure on them.
Paul Holbo, associate dean of liberal arts
said of the study Tuesday, “it’s like inflation
of our currency, it hurts us all.” Holbo said
that when grades are too low the scholastic
deficiency committee can take action. If the
grades are too high he suggested that two
things could be done. First, the grades each
teacher gives out could be posted resulting in
peer group pressure. His second suggestion
was more ominous though and one that would
be a step in the wrong direction. He said if
other measures don’t work faculty legislation
might be set up to control this problem.
Individual faculty members should take
a long look at their grading procedures and
their courses and decide just who is going to
reform grading and how it will be done.
All booked up
During the first week of school, the
University Co-op has turned into a giant
bottle-neck.
Hundreds of students have been trying to
buy their text books—but many have been
unsuccessful. The Co-op has been too busy
and too crowded.
At various points Monday and Tuesday,
the upstairs section of the student store was
so crowded, it constituted a fire hazard and
people had to wait downstairs. The store was
so crowded Monday afternoon, it had to lock
up and begin turning people away half an
hour before the 5 p.m. closing time.
Students must not be punished for not
buying their books until classes start—after
all, there is a notice by many of the texts in
the Co-op warning students to go to class
before they buy their books. But when a
student is kept from buying a book needed for
homework, that constitutes one of the stiffest
punishments imaginable—he is unable to
complete the assignments and starts behind
the other people in his class.
In recent years, the Co-op stayed open
during night-time hours the first week of
school. One year this was done for an entire
week, then it went down to three nights, then
one and now none.
This year, the Co-op chose not to be open
at night for economic reasons—the store
could not make it worth its while to stay open
the extra hours.
That was a mistake. Such a decision
must not be made again.
With more students and faculty mem
bers turning away from the Co-op and ex
ploring other book-buying options, the store’s
Board of Directors or its manager is going to
have to examine ways to better serve its
customers.
They can start by looking into ways the
Co-op can better serve them the first week of
school next fall.
Footnotes
As our fathers resisted unto blood the
lordly avarice of the British ministry ... so
we the daughters never will wear the yoke
which has been prepared for us. We would
rather die in the alms houses than yield to
the wicked oppression attempted to be
imposed upon us.
Factory Girl’s Assn., 1835
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it
expects what never was and never will be.”
Thomas Jefferson
CAUTION
1
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^ damage to wildlife,
massive earthquakes and
destructive tidal waves,
we promise not to hold
tests here again!’