This Week in History: Grades Lost in Transit

Today, during exam season, Princeton students worry whether they can hit the “submit” button on Canvas before the assigned deadline. However, some Princetonians of the past had an extra worry when submitting their papers: What if their finals got lost in the mail?

On Feb. 13, 1985, The Daily Princetonian published reporting on several students enrolled in German 206 who had just been informed by the University that their final papers had been lost in the mail. In an era before Google Drive and Microsoft Word, this was distressing news. Neither of the two students whom the ‘Prince’ interviewed had saved copies of their final papers.

The situation unfolded when visiting Stanford professor David Wellbery, who taught German 206 during the Fall 1984 term, requested that the Germanic Languages department mail seven of his students’ final papers to him so that he could leave New Jersey before the end of reading period. However, three weeks after the papers had been mailed, two had yet to arrive and were presumed lost.

Assistant Dean of the College Richard Williams presented the students whose papers had been lost with two options: either “reconstruct” the paper for full credit, or write a three-page synopsis of the original paper. Until the rewritten paper or synopsis was submitted, the students in the course would receive a grade of ‘incomplete.’ “We can’t concoct a grade,” Williams noted.

The ‘Prince’ conducted its student interviews before the synopsis alternative was offered. The two affected students were Tom Vitzthum ’86 and Steffen Wirth ’85. Wirth noted that the original final required “an insane amount of research” and found the prospect of restarting unfathomable. He added that the blame for the lost papers should be placed upon “some secretary [who] was too stupid to pay for certified mail.” Vitzhum added that the Dean’s office decision went against University policy and that he would find to earn his course credit without rewriting the paper.

However, Princeton had no official policy regarding student work that had been lost after submission, even though German 206 was not the only case of a lost Princeton student assessment. In fact, the previous semester, a preceptor for French 375 had lost several students’ midterms on the train. The preceptor “came to the conclusion that the [midterms] were lost under the tracks,” Nicole Tapay ’86, a student enrolled in the class, recounted. As a result, several students had to retake part of the exam, and the course instructor lowered the weight of the midterm relative to the final when determining final grades.

A week after the German 206 incident, a follow up letter to the chairman was written by a Denise Thompson responding to Wirth’s comments. She wrote critically of Wirth’s comment in particular, which placed the blame for the incident on the secretaries who had mailed the finals. She wrote that “anyone who has ever managed to graduate from college knows that you never turn in a paper without investing the time and money it takes to make photocopies,” shifting the blame onto Wirth and Vitzhum themselves.

Today, hand-written take-home finals submitted in-person seem to be a relic of the past. Having to rewrite a final paper from scratch because of a professor’s mistake, instead of simply reprinting a new copy, seems unimaginable to the current Princeton student. Today, students can be grateful there is little risk of losing assessments when handing in a bluebook to professors at the front of lecture halls.