The taming of the A

Dean of the College Nancy Weiss Malkiel's grading proposals, released last Wednesday, have made news across the nation. Here on campus, students are mad about the changes, pointing in particular to the 35 percent goal as a quota that must not stand. But the proposal is a fundamentally sound one, and with a little tweaking, it can be the beginning of a return to reason in Princeton and throughout the higher education world.

The proposal would provide something that is sorely needed: a grading policy that stretches across departments. Unless students in the natural sciences are simply doing worse work — and there is no reason to believe this — what exists is a system where grades are not a good indicator to the student of how well he is doing.

Fairness

The problem is a problem of fairness and honesty. If, as Malkiel asserts, faculty are not giving students the grades they think students deserve — if they are not giving them an honest assessment of their achievement of their work — then the faculty need to take action. Students do not deserve grades that lead to Morgan Stanley or Yale Law. They deserve grades that are honest.

The current grading scheme does not accomplish this. By clustering nearly half of grades in the A-range, a wide range of work gets the same grade, leaving a student who gets a B+ confused and angered that his work just missed the cut. Why, he wonders, was it his paper that got the B+?

Real-world consequences

Many students will think we're ignoring the real world. Students need good grades to get good jobs, they say. Students will turn elsewhere if they can't get those grades at Princeton University. Maybe they're right. But they ignore something. They presume that they deserve a dishonest assessment that pleases them. What worse preparation for the real world is there? It's not as if Malkiel has ignored students' concerns. She has talked to businesses, scholarships and graduate schools to get their impressions. They say that a grade shift at Princeton will not put students at a disadvantage.

A concern that must be taken seriously is students' mental health. Many students face tremendous pressure to succeed — internally, from parents, from peers, from their high-school classmates. Princeton students are used to getting A's. The first C will be crushing for some students. It's unfortunate that that is the case, but until a change in grading standard becomes accepted, students' "need" for good grades will probably exacerbate mental health issues on campus. The University must be prepared for this, but this should not keep the faculty from going in forward fighting grade compression.

No quota

The goal reducing the percentage of A's to 35 percent has unfortunately received far too much attention. It must not be a hard quota. Professors must be free to grade as they see fit. Importantly, there are no class-by-class quotas, nor is there any mechanism for bringing overly (or insufficiently) generous professors in line.

We believe the quota proposition will be met by one of the proposal's greatest strengths. This decision about grading rests where it ought to: in the hands of the faculty. Many faculty have complained about grade inflation but say they can only address it if all departments agree to take it on. They are an independent bunch. It's hard to imagine them voluntarily curtailing their discretion if they thought it unwise.

Need for communication

Some of the student uproar and misunderstanding could have been quelled from the start had students been kept better informed as the plan was crafted. Dean Malkiel's email caught many students by surprise. When students bring their questions to her in the forums over the next week, she should not be surprised if they are hostile.

Students who think combating grade inflation is a good idea can still have reservations. Some are rightly wondering why such a change had to be proposed while they were here. If only they were a few years older, they would have gotten inflated grades. It is unfair, but it is hard to find a way around this. Princeton has been around since 1746 and will exist for many more years. While students' personal concerns deserve some consideration, they must not stand in the way of longterm changes to resume fair grading.

This plan can be the beginning of a return to reason in grading at Princeton and nationwide, but it will only fulfill its potential if more action is taken. Grading and teaching variations from precept to precept, for example, need to be addressed. But this does not mean the proposals should not be adopted. They will not solve the problem, but we have to start somewhere.