No one rises to low expectations

Princetonians and outsiders alike have long decried elements of anti-intellectualism that they claim fester on this campus. It is clear to us that these charges are not entirely without merit. As with potential solutions to any problem, we hold that the best are those that could be quickly and effectively implemented, at low or no cost, and would not radically change any element of Princeton's integral fabric or our unique undergraduate experience.

Revising the University's Pass/D/Fail policy is one such solution.

Allowing students to take classes pass, D or fail encourages them to broaden their intellectual horizons and take courses significantly outside their main interest area with little risk. Part of Princeton's greatest draw is its outstanding faculty. Few other institutions can claim similar depth in areas as disparate as molecular biology and economics, physics and public policy. Princeton's campus is home to academic superstars and outstanding teachers. Every engineer should feel comfortable exploring bioethics Professor Peter Singer's PHI 385: Practical Ethics; every humanities major should take a shot at economics Professor Harvey Rosen's ECO 100: Introduction to Microeconomics. The undergraduate rule of 8 and 12 states that students can take no more than 12 courses in their department. This leaves AB students with at least 19 courses to take in whatever departments they choose. The University should encourage students to make risky choices in their course selection instead of driving them to take the same gut classes that annually fill McCosh 50. To this end, we recommend rethinking the P/D/F policy.

First, students should be able to rescind a P/D/F until after they have taken the final exam — not just through the ninth week of class. Forcing students to make a final decision so early in the course leads to one clear negative: Any student who is taking a class P/D/F and is doing well in the course has no incentive to challenge themselves in the final quarter and on the final exam. We have heard countless examples of students who had no motivation to put any thought into a term paper, final project or exam because it would ultimately make no difference. They ignore lectures in front of their laptops or cut class altogether because they know they have a very low chance of getting below a C minus. Such a policy should raise some immediate red flags at a university ordinarily (and correctly) focused on imbuing its graduates with a great depth and breadth of knowledge. Incentives are misaligned right now. The ability to rescind the P/D/F option would force more students to actually put effort into their P/D/F courses beyond the midterm exam. This change will costlessly and instantaneously increase the effort that students put into their P/D/F courses.

Second, more courses at the University must be made available for P/D/F. We recognize that some classes must be taken for a grade: writing seminars, sequential language courses and key departmentals. Why, however, are roughly 40 percent (according to a recent study by U-Councilor Jonathan Elist '07) of the courses in this year's Course Offerings booklet not available to P/D/F? We understand that professors may not like having P/D/F students in their classes, but if we change the very nature of the P/D/F, they will have more engaged students in turn. Further, we can't imagine any true intellectual preferring the absence of an intellectually curious student to his presence as a P/D/F student.

Princeton currently lags significantly behind the rest of the Ivy League with one of the most restrictive policies among its peer institutions. Harvard, for example, has no limit on the number of courses a student may take on a pass/fail basis. At Yale, a student can take two courses on the school's Credit/D/Fail option per semester (as compared to one P/D/F per semester at Princeton). We encourage you to read a summary of other Ivy League grading policies prepared by former Class of 2007 senator Graham Gottlieb, available on the USG web site.

As Provost Christopher Eisgruber '83 is fond of saying, the purpose of a Princeton education is to stretch students' minds and challenge them to do the best work that they are truly capable of doing. Allowing the P/D/F policy to march on unchanged represents a fundamental misunderstanding of incentives. Worse, preserving the status quo forgoes a priceless (and costless) opportunity to reinvigorate both intellectual curiosity and risk-taking on campus. We and the rest of the USG look forward to working with the administration in hopes of revising this policy. Rob Biederman '08 is the USG president and may be reached at rdb@princeton.edu. Sarah Breslow '08 is the USG academics chairs and a 'Prince' deputy executive editor for photography. She may be reached at sbreslow@princeton.edu.