My partner in crime, biologist Luana Maroja at prestigious Williams College, is once again making heterodox statements that will peeve a number of students—and perhaps faculty. But she is brave.
In this case, some Williams students got the bright idea last winter that the College should do away with all grades for first-semester students because those students want to play and socialize without any “pressure”. Further, the stress of getting grades could supposedly damage their mental health.
But of course one of the motivations (see below) also seems to be achieving “equity”—a motivation designed to cast opponents of the suggestion as bigots or racists. The “equity excuse” has been made by a number of colleges to not only eliminate grades for incoming students, but also to omit standardized tests like the SAT as requirements for applying to college. In its place some schools have installed “holistic admissions”, a way to get around the Supreme Court ruling that colleges cannot use race-based admissions. In fact, required standardized tests seem have the effect of boosting minority achievement, by highlighting those students who do particularly well in comparison with others.
It appears, and this is not rocket science, that most student groups at Williams are in favor of the proposal. They don’t really want to bust their hump first semester; they want to play and hang out. Luana, of course, thinks this is slacking off, as you can see from her letter, which was published this morning in The Williams Record (the student newspaper). I agree because I’m an old-school professor, but Luana is young. It appeared today because the faculty will be discussing the propsal this afternoon.
Click below to read it:
I’ll quote the first four paragraphs of the letter, but the whole letter is about three times longer:
This winter, the student members of the Committee on Educational Affairs (CEA) brought an argument that the College should adopt a mandatory Credit/No Credit (C/NC) grading policy for students in their first semester at the College. On April 3, faculty were informed about this argument, which will be a topic of discussion at the faculty meeting this afternoon.
This suggestion was based on similar policies at peer institutions, like Swarthmore, MIT, and Wellesley, where first-year students still receive letter grades on all course components, but receive “credit” or “no credit” designations on their official transcripts (i.e. shadow grading). The argument claims that grade-induced academic expectations are stressful and that students’ mental health and social relationships will improve under a C/NC system while keeping students’ long-term academic performance intact.
What proponents of the argument fail to realize is that adopting the policy could, in fact, result in significant academic harm, especially for students who do not come from elite academic backgrounds. Although there will not be a motion to adopt the policy at this afternoon’s meeting — the CEA brought this topic to the general faculty for discussion to build consensus on the “underlying value of the goals” — I think it is important to share my opinion here, because many students are not familiar with this argument and many professors who share my feelings are afraid to voice opposition due to the framing’s focus on mental health, grades, and minorities.
The argument claims that grades given in the first semester harm various marginalized groups. It asserts that “isolation, stress and a myopic focus on academics … are differentially demanding for marginalized students, whether based on their racial identity, class, sexual orientation or any otherness.” While I appreciate the empathy for marginalized groups, this framing stifles debate. Because the argument is framed as “reducing harm towards minorities,” professors and students opposed to the argument will be afraid of voicing concerns or offering arguments against it lest they be perceived as callous or bigoted.
As Luana points out later, she herself, as a Brazilian student entering an American graduate school (Cornell), and coming from a dysfunctional educational system, well knows motivating value of assessing merit. You can’t do that with a pass/no pass system.
Jerry, it appears that the “link” to Luana’s article is just an image and not a link. I’d sure like to read her letter.
https://williamsrecord.com/466535/opinions/its-a-bad-idea-to-eliminate-letter-grades-for-first-semester-students/#:~:text=Although%20many%20students%20may%20initially,them%20for%20the%20College's%20workload.
It’s below but I’ll fix it on the post, too.
It’s fixed now; thanks for pointing it out.
Gosh. Once colleges and universities start eliminating grades at one end, they will need to start eliminating degrees at the other.
I agree with Luana Maroja’s position here, but, a suggestion: when arguing against woke positions be careful not to automatically use woke terminology. E.g.:
“Marginalized” implies that the group is being actively pushed to the margins. The woke regard “marginalized groups” as meaning “groups that are being actively oppressed by the dominant cis/white males”.
Dictionaries say that to “marginalize” means to “treat someone or something as if they are not important”. I don’t think that is how US universities regard the students being referred to, quite the opposite.
I think Maroja was wise to write a letter containing a controversial opinion using language which will help establish a common ground with potential opponents. She’s producing arguments meant to persuade. We pick our battles.
When I went to Case Western Reserve University (the Case half) all the way back in the seventies all the freshman courses were pass/fail. I do not know if they still are.
I did not hear any official reasoning but various people said that it was to not ruin a four year grade point for a good student who had trouble coping with first time away from home and other firsts. I suppose it could be a shock for someone from faraway who went all through grade school and high school with the same group. And I did hear from a few foreign students how they found ordinary life in Cleveland “bewildering”. So I have some sympathy.
The student would still receive feedback on performance since tests and assignments were still graded. And in my case I took a few sophomore courses my first year and those were graded.
Very good article. Thank you Luana for being the adult in the room, the voice of reason!
Grading serves 3 purposes:
1. Feedback to students about how well they have mastered the course material.
2. Incentives to study.
3. Rank students.
All three purposes are necessary. Students have found time to socialize in the past under a standard grading policy
The student proposal to switch to pass/fail for first-year students makes no sense. The point of college is learning, not socializing.
And, as Luana points out, grade inflation already has blunted the incentives for studying. On this see this recent article by a current Harvard student:
(For people not familiar with North-American English: AWOL = absent without leave [that is, leave = permission to leave; the origin of the abbreviation is the military].)
If you are a full-time student, attending classes and studying for them should take up between 35 and 40 hours per week. But we do know that these days the average students spends, what, no more than 20 hours per week on these activities.
Harvard professor Steven Pinker on Harvard students (from a 2014 article):
Steven Pinker: The Trouble With Harvard: The Ivy League is broken and only standardized tests can fix it. The New Republic, September 4, 2014
https://newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-tests
Thank you, but please look at the Roolz on the left sidebar to see the suggested word limits for comments. You’ve exceeded them, but I’ll let this one go. But do try to post shorter comments.
Thank you.
When I began university in 1969 (BC, Canada) it was unthinkable that I would not attend all classes (physics and math are hard).
Extracurriculars were not a requirement for admission (were not even on the admission form).
I can’t believe these students…I guess I sound really old.
I started college 14 years after you and you don’t sound old to me! I’m assuming by “old” you mean old fashioned? At any rate, I can’t imagine simply not going to class, either. I always took over the recommended number of units as well as working full-time (a second stint on the weekends, in fact), but in my “old” way of thinking, if you’re not going to attend classes, what the hell are you going to college for.
Apologies if this posts twice… It seemed to not take the first time
Completely agree.
At my alma mater (Caltech), all freshman grades were pass/fail, and I think it was a good thing. Pretty much every entering freshman had been the math/science jock of their high school and was used to getting straight A’s with very little effort. Coming to a college where every single person was similarly (or more!) talented was, for many, quite a shock—often not really brought home to them until their first midterm or final on which they scored appallingly low (compared to prior experiences). Having those first few quarters as a pure “you’re gonna have to work HARD just to keep up!” learning experience was, on balance, worth it.
Of course, the dynamics at Willams might be different. And it wasn’t perfectly calibrated at Caltech, where we often saw (a) first quarter, bad grades, big shock; (b) second quarter, you learned your lesson, work hard! (c) third quarter, work just hard enough to pass. Of course the grades kicked in for real from second year onward.
Places like Caltech or MIT that are very selective: they can get away with pass/fail but not for the rest of us.
I teach at a community college, where the only requirement for admission is a high school diploma. Many of my students, if not most, fall under the definition of “marginalized.” Eliminating grades would be a terrible solution for them. They need support learning how to study, learning how to manage their time, learning how to think strategically about balancing their many life responsibilities. Without grades, a greater percentage of the students would fail. I spend a significant amount of time detailing feedback about why they are being evaluated with the grade they received. Many of them then change the quality of their work for the better, Many of course do not.
I am unsympathetic when elite students want to be treated as more fragile and helpless than my CC students. From my POV, they have so many advantages. Instead of asking to eliminate grades, they can seek.out the many support resources colleges and universities offer their students. They can take their knocks along the way as they learn how to navigate these new demands. In the end, they will have a degree from a prestigious institution that will open doors for them.
Thank you for your dedicated work as community college faculty, Emily. Your work is so important in preparing students for new opportunities in jobs, careers, and/or further education at a 4-year college – opportunities many lack upon high school graduation whether due to grades, inadequate financial resources, or just poor planning. In the early 2000’s our governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine asked our community colleges to rethink themselves beyond a simple two-year stand alone program after high school, and offer courses and a culture which would permit some of their students an option to graduate smoothly into our 4-year universities. One example is that about half of our CC’s, the ones in our high tech communities, created two years of specific engineering, science, and math courses that would prepare a student to enter the junior year engineering major at our 4-year state universities upon earning his associate degree.
Most of the students in my program intend to transfer. That’s another reason they need to figure out how to succeed as a college student in their freshman year. We have a lot of success with our transfer students completing 4 and 5 year degrees. At this point, our approach is to keep standards high. Perhaps you can tell I am old, because I believe when they work hard they look at what they achieve, and that gives them confidence to continue to raise their standards and accomplish their goals.
While I totally agree that this scheme may hurt students with weak preparation, it does help students who have a history of excellence. Most incoming students at elite insitutions are used to being at the very top of their high school cohort, and it is only at Lake Wobegone that all students are above average: at MIT or at Chicago half of the incoming class will be at the bottom half. Many of these students have a large part of their persona built around “academic excellence” and their new rank may be quite a rude awakening. A gradeless quarter may give them some time to get used to their new status, and, possibly, to catch up.
My understanding is not that there are no evaluations — essays, problem sets, programs, tests, are graded.
One of the advantages of first semester grades is that they can let you know if you’re better off going to a different school. I’ve read arguments that minority students who would thrive in a regular or community college often end up frustrated and bitter in elite institutions known for their rigorous standards. The ultimate goal should be their future success in life, not making sure the numbers look good.
Great to hear.
Grades are related to challenge – they compel working for understanding, like perhaps hurdles. They are not perfect. They were not meant to be perfect. And high grades just feel great – students should not be denied the opportunity to pursue them.
Wanted to extend my comment to note the moral dimension to this problem. Morality should be given strong weight, and kept clear in thought – so I personally have learned from many of the topics here on WEIT, with the detailed analyses and such.
I guess I’ll leave it at that.
For a site, such as this one, dedicated to science, there seem to be many arguments but a dearth of evidence concerning the issue of grading. Unlike most institutions, Berea College, has an income cap for admission – basically only students who are Pell Grant eligible are selected. The predictors of academic success at most colleges and universities (HS GPA, ACT, Family Income (measured by EFC)) do not predict academic performance for Berea’s perennial cohorts of students with financial challenges. However, Berea College, like most institutions, tracks all the grades of every student every semester.
Fifteen years ago, several students and tried to predict academic students’ success. We considered both Retention (showing up for the third semester) and each student’s 3rd semester GPA. We considered over a hundred potential predictors. Some of these were measures available prior to matriculation, but others focused on measures related to students’ academic experience during the first semester. Berea’s required course in composition and critical thinking (GSTR 110) was taught by faculty from nearly all departments. Each teacher designed his or her own course with the goal of preparing students for academic success by developing their thinking and writing skills in any nearly any way they chose.
In some ways, the results of the study were disappointing – there was little evidence that factors such as: testing frequency, emphasizing cooperation instead of competition, requiring several hundreds of pages of written work vs. less than 50 pages, emphasizing traditional liberal arts subject matter, or diverse grading philosophies and distributions, predicted the students’ subsequent academic success. However, we found that about 60 students randomly enrolled four sections in which no syllabus was on file as required by academic regulations, had an average third semester GPA of only 2.3 compared to the rest of the cohort’s (about 350 students) average GPA of near 3.0.
The single best predictor was students’ grades in the introductory course. Despite the complete lack of uniformity across the sections of this course, the grade each student received predicted their subsequent academic success. Some faculty members gave nearly all A’s while others were very stringent graders. I was confident that if we calculated the students standing within his/her section we would be able to predict subsequent academic success even better. I was wrong. The actual grade predicted nearly 10% more variance in subsequent performance, than the relative grade (standing within each section).
Although I agree with all the arguments for setting high standards and providing accurate feedback early on, the data simply did not support this position. Perhaps Berea College is unique, but conducting such a study at your college or university would be a useful way to gather evidence to inform policy rather than trying to select the most compelling argument listen to the loudest voices…
Your first sentence is insulting. I am posting on a letter that was published today by a friend in a school where they did not do the study, and you take it upon yourself to lecture me on not having the evidence for Williams College itself on a “science oriented” site.
You need to lean to write a polite comment, and you can send your remonstrations to Luana Maroja, not me.
I did not intend to insult you or anyone else. I did want to point out how easy it is for all of us to get caught up in arguments and not consider where we might find evidence relevant to our policies. I was convinced that a faculty member who required relatively little work yet awarded very high grades was derelict. His students subsequent academic performance proved me wrong. McIntyre suggests that the essence of a scientific attitude is a deep respect for evidence and a willingness to let it alter even our most fervent beliefs. I see this message in many places on your site.
Luana is right. Here’s a personal perspective on how a bad grade can also serve as a helpful warning and have a clarifying function: I was in my first semester as an undergraduate, in the times before rampant grade-inflation. Together with other factors, a poor grade in a particular science course — a grade that should have been avoidable — confirmed to me that I was on the wrong academic track. I switched majors to what I realized reflected my true interests (switching from a major within the sciences to one within the humanities), and I never looked back.
Thinking back, I’m grateful for that bad grade.
I remember at our Freshman convocation at Stanford President Sterling reminding us that half of us would be in the bottom half of our class. Gasp🙀
And with our curve, it was very very hard to get As (only 15% of each test), but we worked our backsides off to get the odd one, or maybe even a B+. I was very pleased to graduate in the bottom of the top third.There is way too much coddling these days, with the tyranny of low expectations. I really don’t see how students these days have so much more stressed thsn we were in the 60s and 70s. (And I won’t say Get off my lawn.😖)
The grade point average at Harvard is now 3.8 across all students, which means that everyone gets an A! It’s pathetic. Why bother to give grades if everybody gets the same one. And it’s not that students are getting that much better, either.
+mucho
As expected, Luana is completely correct. Students who are working to earn a degree may be listened to, out of politeness, but they should have no real role in deciding what it takes to earn that degree. Earn your diploma. Enter academia. And then we can talk.
Exactly on point. Students seem to think their instructors know nothing about being a student, although obviously instructors had to have been students themselves at some point.
Substantial credit to those who stand against the demands for applauding mediocrity, like Luana and Jerry.