Top marks fall across programs

Between 2001 and 2004, the three years before the implementation of the grading policy, A’s comprised 47 percent of the grades in undergraduate courses.

In a statement during the faculty meeting Monday afternoon, Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel announced the progress of the four programs — engineering, social sciences, natural sciences and humanities — in bringing down the number of A’s distributed.

Malkiel could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

According to a University statement, “[i]n humanities departments, A’s accounted for 45.5 percent of the grades in undergraduate courses in 2005-08, down from 55.6 percent in 2001-04. In the social sciences, there were 37.4 percent A grades in 2005-08, down from 43.3 percent in 2001-04. In the natural sciences, there were 35.3 percent A grades in 2005-08, compared to 37.2 percent in 2001-04. In engineering, the figures were 41.9 percent A’s in 2005-08, down from 50.2 percent in 2001-04.”

History department representative Alec Dun GS ’04 noted that grades in the history department have mirrored this trend. The number of A’s had “gradually raised in the past 15 years.” Now, he said, the grades seem to retreating away from the A-range, a trend that he considers a positive development.

In other departments, the grades already met the standards of the grading policy.

Psychology department chair Deborah Prentice said in an e-mail that the department’s statistics have remained stable over time. “We were at 35 percent A’s before the policy was instituted, so we’ve never had to make any changes,” she said.

Likewise, department chairs for the molecular biology, chemical engineering and physics departments all said in e-mails that their department gave around 35 percent A-range grades prior to the implementation of the grading policy.

Physics department chair Edward Groth added, however, that the grading guidelines for independent work, which stipulate that less than 55 percent of independent work in a department ought to receive A-grades, have been more difficult to meet. “We tried very hard last year, and I believe we either succeeded or came very close,” he said.

USG president Josh Weinstein ’09 said in an e-mail that though the numbers are “startling,” “it’s hard to judge this simply based on these numbers as they don’t factor in the size of the department, which is critically important.”

Remaining discrepancies

Individual departments’ statistics have not yet been released, but the general numbers released Monday do show discrepancies between the number of A’s distributed in humanities courses and in natural and social science courses.

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Certain departments have either not shown progress or made progress that has since been reversed, according the University statement.

“The committee will be working closely with those departments in the months ahead to devise specific strategies for turning these situations around,” the statement said.

Departments account for this gap in various ways.

East Asian studies (EAS) departmental representative David Leheny said that one of the challenges his department faces is establishing a cohesive set of standards. Due to the different criteria used in evaluating language courses and “topic” courses, there is no “one-size-fits-all” policy, he said.

The EAS department is working to conform to the grading targets.

Others speculate that it is small seminars that are tough to grade in accordance with the policy.

Abiding by the grading policy has been “difficult, as students, in particular in the seminars, are very focused,” Near Eastern studies professor and departmental representative Erika Gilson said in an e-mail. “[I]t is quite unfair to give less than an ‘A’ to students who have earned the grade, to satisfy a statistical target,” she explained.

For example, “in a seminar where there are five students, the difference between 20 percent A’s and 40 percent A’s is one student,” Leheny said.

Weinstein said that the USG has “addressed the issue by helping students whose grades were unfairly lowered by reporting these cases to Dean Malkiel, who has been receptive to work[ing] with us and evaluat[ing] each case.”

Nevertheless, he added, “there is a major problem on the front of the implementation of the policy itself,” explaining that, contrary to the stated policy, A-range work does not always receive an A-range grade.

“While we’re doing our best to abide by the same goals as everyone else, we wouldn’t want to force a professor to assign an artificially low grade,” Leheny said.

The policy on the ground

On a personal level, Leheny said, the grading policy mainly impacts the way he structures his assignments.

He explained that he endeavors to design them in a “clear and transparent” way, to be “confident that I’m going to be able to establish ... a range of grades.”

But he emphasized that upon coming to the University last year, he found the policy to be a positive force.

“I was thrilled by it,” he said, explaining that he likes how the system “rewards excellence” and “prevents students from gravitating towards one department or faculty member.”

The policy has elicited much discussion among faculty members.

“It is always difficult to assess [student] work,” music departmental representative Elizabeth Bergman said.

She explained that the policy provokes conversation among the faculty about what it means to evaluate work in performance.

Likewise, Dun noted that, “in conversations about pedagogy, [faculty members agree to] make sure that we continue to hold the bar high for these outstanding undergraduates.”

Dun added that he believes the grade deflation policy is not a mandate from the administration.

“It’s a suggestion from the college, as well as ... an instruction given by the chair,” he said. While the instructors of larger courses may discuss the policy with their preceptors, the policy is never a quota system, Dun said.

The policy has also provided professors with deeper insight into one another’s grading processes.

“There is little sense of what goes on [in other classrooms],” Bergman said. “Only the administration has broader view.”

To get this University-wide grading information “can be eye-opening,” she said.

Leheny added that it is a “policy I wish that more schools would adopt.”