Parting shots

First, a thought about grading. There’s a lot of ink spilled over grade deflation — one of my first columns was a mostly useless analysis of the situation — but I think that the question of deflation itself often eclipses other important issues.

To review, the official policy calls for each department to set a goal of giving no more than 35 percent A grades each semester, but it is very clear — both from the policy itself and from Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel’s elucidations — that, before a semester starts, each department should have an idea of what constitutes “A-grade work” in each of its classes. That is, the standards for “A-grade work” should be set in such a way that the professors expect only 35 percent of students to achieve them, but the standards themselves should not be changed mid-semester just to meet the 35 percent goal.

What bugs me, then, is how rarely we are told about these grading standards. In at most three of my classes have I known before the midterm what it would take to get an A. In another two, I did learn about the grading standard, but only after the final — and even then, only when I asked. Some departments are better than others — I hear that the molecular biology department is very good about spelling out its rubrics — but it seems that we should hold all departments to a high standard in this regard.

All that’s needed, I think, is a bit of grass-roots student agitation: Ask your professors in the first week of class what it will take for you to get an A and, if they don’t give you a reasonably detailed answer, politely complain to the USG and to Malkiel. Requests for such information are eminently fair, and so if, for whatever reason, professors prove reluctant to divulge their grading standards, a flood of student protest would be difficult to ignore.

There are other issues with the current grading policy, many of which may well harm students more. (For instance, the lower GPAs themselves can be particularly painful when applying to jobs and graduate schools.) Still, I think this is a good place to start. Here, at least, is something that we have the power to fix, and clear and open grading standards would empower students in the ongoing argument over grades.

Second — and, as promised, mostly unrelated — a thought on the Honor System. There has been much concern in the past year over how the Honor Code is enforced, with the most frequent complaints being that the system is opaque and draconian. However, from what I can tell, it’s a very little known fact that the student body can, completely of its own accord, change the Constitution of the Honor System. Specifically, to quote the Honor Committee website, the Constitution “can be changed by a petition of 200 students followed by a three-fourths vote in a student referendum.”

For all the concern, I’m surprised that we don’t see more action along these lines — 200 signatures is nothing! And, call me cynical, but I don’t have a hard time imagining us voting ourselves less harsh punishments. (And to be fair, our typical punishments are much harsher than those at most of our peer institutions.) Some variant of “First violation: fail the test, academic probation; second violation: expulsion” might well garner a three-fourths majority vote. But less important than the specific change is recognizing that we have the ability to effect any change that we can agree upon. Should the trial process be more transparent? Should we even call it an “Honor” Code? The questions are ours to debate, answer and institute.

It’s worth mentioning the Committee on Discipline as well. Though as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a constitution, I think it would become unreasonable for the COD to mete out year-long suspensions for cheating on take-home tests if the Honor Committee ceased to do so for in-class exams. That is, changing one would probably force the hand of the other, and we do have the power to change one.

I claimed that these two topics were mostly unrelated, but there’s at least one common thread: In both cases we have an issue that troubles many of us, and in both cases, there are actions that we could take to improve our lot. Acknowledging this might be daunting: If, in two years, the Honor System hasn’t changed and the precise meaning of “A-grade work” is still a mystery, we’ll have, in part, ourselves to blame. On the other hand, if we do successfully fight the fact that it’s easier to whine than to act, then we’ll have something to be proud of. If there’s a moral here, it’s that Princeton is ours, and we forget this at our peril.

Greg Burnham is a math major from Memphis, Tenn. He can be reached at gburnham@princeton.edu.