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A few weeks back, another odd story from higher ed made the rounds. A professor decided on a new grading policy:<\/p>\n
Professor lets \u2018stressed\u2019 students decide their own grade<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Hey, grades are stressful, even assigning them isn\u2019t fun.As a student I hated getting grades\u2026I particularly hated bad grades, which is why I generally studied hard enough not to get those.<\/p>\n Let me share some personal anecdotes here before moving on.<\/p>\n The worst grade I ever got in college was a \u2018C.\u2019 It was in an undergraduate mathematics course, and, for newcomers to the blog, I teach college level mathematics today. In terms of numbers, the professor was generous to give me a C; I failed every test, spectacularly. Actually, almost every student in the class failed every test spectacularly. The professor was a great lecturer but his tests were ridiculous. After I failed his first test, I studied very hard for the second test\u2026and failed it, too. For the third test, I walked into class with literally the previous month of material memorized verbatim\u2026still failed. I imagine I failed the final (can\u2019t even remember), it wasn\u2019t until years later I learned that he was teaching from a different book than what the students had (because I took another course and noticed that the book would been great to have for his class\u2026I aced that other course, and it was a course many other students failed).<\/p>\n Despite all this, it never once occurred to me to beg him for a different grade.<\/p>\n The only time in my entire college education that I asked for a better grade was with my Physics professor. My average from homework and tests was a 89.6. I\u2019d scored A\u2019s on 2 tests and the final, but he was giving me a B because the cutoff for A was right at 90. He did this because so many students had perfect 100\u2019s on all the tests that he didn\u2019t see any reason to give me a break. He had a point, but I do wish he\u2019d believed me when I told him the reason for all the perfect scores was the fraternities had the tests and answers in advance1<\/sup>.<\/p>\n Times have changed, and now we have a new idea: just pick your grade<\/a>:<\/p>\n The \u201cStress reduction policy\u201d is outlined in the online syllabi for two of\u00a0<\/em>Richard Watson<\/em><\/a>\u2019s fall business courses, \u201cData Management\u201d and \u201cEnergy Informatics.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf you feel unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course, you can email the instructor indicating what grade you think is appropriate, and it will be so changed,\u201d the policy reads. \u201cNo explanation is required,<\/em><\/p>\n Now this story made the rounds, and people with some understanding of education realize this is idiocy, chastising the professor for making this silliness official by putting it in a syllabus, making grades utterly, and officially, irrelevant.<\/p>\n Did I mention that the worst grade that I, a mathematics professor, ever received was in mathematics? Did I mention that it motivated me to study harder<\/em>? That\u2019s the point of grades, you see, to give students something to work for<\/em>. Yes, they\u2019re goofy and not really worth anything when it comes down to it but they are, indeed, a motivational tool, a tool that we\u2019ve been using for a century or more because it works so well, especially relative to the cost (zero) of a grading system.<\/p>\n It\u2019d be nice to have kids study for the sake of pure knowledge but\u2026they\u2019re kids. Sometimes you have to manipulate them a bit while training them to do the right thing. Grades, like Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, aren\u2019t necessarily real things to worry about\u2026but they are useful in the hands of responsible adults.<\/p>\n But this professor is apparently going to irresponsibly toss them from his business courses. People reading about the professor\u2019s actions are understandably outraged, but there\u2019s more to the story, by far:<\/p>\n Richard Watson<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy at the University of Georgia\u2019s Terry College of Business.<\/em><\/p>\n So, Professor Watson is the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair For Internet Strategy. Hmm, that\u2019s quite the title. Lots of departments have Distinguished Chairs for something-or-other, it\u2019s a good use of donated money: use that money to hire a professor, hopefully one who espouses the beliefs or practices of the donor. He\u2019s also received a Regent\u2019s award, giving him a $10,000 a year bonus for his very successful scholarship (the gentle reader should note carefully how awards for scholarship are roughly 1% of the awards Poo Bahs get for anti-scholarship activities\u2026we should probably ask questions about this being the right way to run a scholarly system).<\/p>\n There\u2019s more on the syllabus than just the \u201cfree grade\u201d policy. The syllabus specifies all assignments are open book, open notes, even open laptap, that the tests will only assess very basic understanding of course material, and so on.<\/p>\n Is he serious?<\/p>\n This guy\u2019s a real academic, why would he engage in such a ridiculous policy? His university received considerable (and justified) bad press for it, and had to step in:<\/p>\n This important correction didn\u2019t make the rounds like the first reports, but hey, not everyone can follow these things so closely. Allow me to quote from the above:<\/p>\n \u201cA recent online report published a syllabus that a Terry College of Business professor had placed on his website. The syllabus stated that his grading policy would allow students inappropriate input into the assignment of their own grades. I want you to know that the syllabus did not conform with the University\u2019s rigorous expectations and policy regarding academic standards for grading\u2026Rest assured that this ill-advised proposal will not be implemented in any Terry classroom.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Wow! Admin is now formally stepping in and setting grading policy. This is a big reach for admin, as they\u2019ve lost such attempts in the courts, and like most everything admin does, is wrong. The gentle reader is probably wondering why I\u2019m not cheering admin\u2019s decision here. It\u2019s because there\u2019s so much going on behind the scenes in higher ed, and I\u2019m sure some of it\u2019s happening at this university as well.<\/p>\n \u201cAll tests and exams are designed to be completed in half the allotted time\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n –from the original syllabus.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ll be using conjecture here, but my years in higher ed put me in a pretty good position to fill in the blanks. Reading the original syllabus more carefully (he changed it, but you can find the original here<\/a>, it\u2019s loaded with deliberate idiocy) it\u2019s very clear there\u2019s more here than what we saw at first glance. He\u2019s daring admin to do something about it.<\/p>\n Our professor here is a legitimate scholar and academic, with decades of experience, and tenure. He\u2019s been teaching real courses for years, but has noticed that in his advanced courses, he\u2019s getting students that, simply, should not be there. It\u2019s starting to happen often now, and some professors respond by failing the whole class (with admin again stepping in to overrule the faculty<\/a>). These fake students are going to admin and complaining that they just can\u2019t handle the stress of a real college course. Admin has been pressuring the professor to change his course into a fake course. He\u2019s refused to do so, and even uses real grades.<\/p>\n In this case, our professor didn\u2019t fail the whole class, but he did fail students\u2026and even failing a few students is something admin will not tolerate, no matter if they have it coming<\/a>. Our professor is at the top of his game, however, admin can\u2019t threaten him with denying a promotion or anything like that.<\/p>\n Still admin has these complaining students coming to them, asking for better grades. Admin asks the professor nicely, but he won\u2019t do it and admin doesn\u2019t have control over him like they do with your typical adjunct (which is the reason why adjuncts are so common on campus, and why we\u2019re seeing \u201cadvanced\u201d students who have degrees but can\u2019t read or write now). So, admin just stepped in and changed student grades. The professor knows it\u2019s happening\u2026he dared admin to make it written policy that admin controls grading. They fell for it.<\/p>\n My blog has documented administrators doing the like before<\/a>, and I\u2019ve seen it with my own eyes as well (at a community college). Please understand, at a large school a professor can easily not notice when a student\u2019s grades are being changed surreptitiously\u2026it wouldn\u2019t surprise me to find it\u2019s far more widespread than one might guess from the rare reports in the media.<\/p>\n So, now let\u2019s put that joke of a syllabus in perspective. The professor knows that admin was changing student grades, and doesn\u2019t like the fraud turning his school into a joke. Since he can\u2019t change admin, he turns his syllabus into a joke, because he knows this is what admin wants him to do: run fake courses.<\/p>\n And admin has now declared that, yes, they control grades now. He\u2019s going to want that well documented, for later. Let\u2019s give it a semester or two to see if admin\u2019s actions come back to haunt them.<\/p>\n At the risk of making Paul Harvey roll over in his grave\u2026\u201dAnd now you (probably) know\u2026the rest of the story.\u201d<\/p>\nUGA says no to prof\u2019s plan to let students grade themselves<\/a><\/h1>\n