Binghamton University is often lauded as the “Ivy of the SUNYs.” With the prestige, it seems, come some of the afflictions: grade inflation is an issue here at BU, and admnistrators don’t have a plan to stop it.
In the Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, at least, grade inflation has been discussed time and time again over the past two decades. But these discussions have never led to any policy changes — or, for that matter, any policy — because of mixed faculty opinions on the subject. And so it remains in September 2006.
So earlier this month, in response to activity of the Harpur Educational Planning and Policies Committee, Associate Dean Donald Blake released grade distribution reports for the last three semesters to the college’s faculty.
“Colleges always look at trends in grading. We’re obliged to do so,” Blake said. “Over the years they rose quite a bit, leveled off, and then rose again.”
Although nothing has formally changed as a result of the meetings and reviews, members of the faculty voiced mixed feelings about some potential policies that were veted.
“We threw out the idea of a 35 percent limit on the number of A’s in a class, but the majority of the faculty was not receptive,” said Blake. “The general consensus was to not change anything.”
Students at Harpur will not have to face a sudden shift in grading policies any time soon. The faculty took into account a number of different influences, from new grading definitions and quotas at Princeton University to the college’s grade distribution reports — in which the percentages of each grade were listed by department — before deciding to turn down any formal guidelines.
Issues of grade inflation have consumed universities nationwide for the past four decades. An August 2006 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education details the history of the issue at length, talking about how it dates back to the 1960s when studies first reported that college students’ GPAs were slightly higher than in previous years.
As a result of the national attention, in April 2004 Princeton — about which Blake talked at length in a recent interview — implemented a new grading policy in which the number of “A” grades in undergraduate courses was limited to 35 percent. Other schools have since employed different methods to regulate grade distribution: on student transcripts, the University of Colorado now prints a course’s average grade next to the student’s own individual grade.
In a letter to students, parents and faculty in the summer of 2004, Dean Nancy Weiss of Princeton wrote that “The answer, simply, is that [students] should earn high grades, but only when they perform at a level that merits high grades.”
“Under no circumstances does the policy suggest that any member of the faculty should fail to give an A to a student who deserves it,” the letter went on. “Students who are doing outstanding academic work need to receive A’s.”
Back at BU, Blake’s own most recent letter talks about the “inflationary trend in grades over the past decade.”
“The topic was discussed on different levels for 12 to 18 months,” Blake said. “We’ve reached a plateau across the college and nothing has changed.”
Although faculty members have often officially balked at the idea of a formal grading policy as recently as last fall — the last time departments were questioned for input — Blake and the administration maintain that the issue of inflated grades will not disappear. Instead, Blake’s letter encourages the analysis of grading patterns to continue.
The causes of grade inflation range from pressure on students to do well to pressure on faculty to secure their jobs, tenure or reputations. Some faculty members feel there are additional incentives that cause professors to give higher grades — and for them, a college-wide grade policy may not be the end of the world.
“I think what’s happening is, as majors are interested in attracting more undergraduates to their courses, the incentive is then for people to increase the grades,” said John Arthur, a professor in the philosophy department. “I think the only way to deal with it is to insist from a college-wide perspective that the average grade should be the same in all majors.”
Grade inflation and distribution throughout Harpur means different things for different departments. Some advocates of grading policies suggest that certain majors tend to give out higher grades than others. There are also specific policies employed in certain departments, like philosophy, politics and law, or PPL, which mandates that half of the grades must be C+ or better while the other half should be D- and below.
“I think the real problem is just the incentive[s] … where people sacrifice students’ interests, which is not really to have high grades all across the board but to have grades reflect whether they’re average or below average or above average,” Arthur said.
Some Harpur students, for their part, don’t necessarily seem to think grade inflation is necessarily a “problem.” The BU Student Association’s academic vice president, Becky Kaufman, felt that it is in fact a non-issue: the grade differences between departments, she said, only exist because of the types of tasks students must perform in each class.
“I think the consensus is that we don’t really have grade inflation. If anything we feel it’s deflation,” Kaufman said. “The cap on the amount of A’s given out would only hurt kids because it means that if a student doesn’t fall under the 35 percent mark they won’t get it,” she added, referring to Blake’s proposal.
And while grade inflation seems to be a significant issue in Harpur, in the University’s other schools and colleges the issue is still being hashed out. But one School of Management professor wasn’t too concerned.
“Relatively speaking, it’s not an issue for me,” said Professor Subimal Chatterjee. “My philosophy of teaching is different. I come into the class and essentially establish what I want students to learn and as long as they satisfy my objectives and my requirements I have no hesitation in giving them an A.”