Records Office Makes Sure Grade Reports Don't Lie With Production Line of Checks and Double Checks

When perspiring undergraduates submitted their blue blooks during the examination period, they were merely feeding raw material into the College's vast checking, transcribing, and double checking machinery, which will turn out on Monday, February 17, and end product of thousands of 8 by 5 inch white grade reports.

Since the matter of course marks is such a "fundamentally important" one for so many students, Sargent Kennedy '28, Registrar of the College does not spare any pains that will insure accurate final grade reports.

Marking gears first mesh when a course instructor is issued a grade sheet at examination time, which is due back within a week, complete with inked-in "A"s through "E"s. The grade sheet must be signed by the teacher, Kennedy explained, for the purpose of "authenticity."

The instructor's report is then received at 3 University Hall, and checked off. A team consisting of reader and copier enter the marks into the day pages, which record the term work of each undergraduate. From the original grade sheet, another copying team then transcribes the marks onto the student's permanent record card, which is checked against the day page.

Instructors' mark sheets are then shipped down to the International Business Machine room in the basement of University Hall. Here a machine punches off all the marks from one course on individual student I.B.M. cards.

By some intricate and mysterious process, the Business Machine cards are then put through the mill, and a "test" grade sheet similar to the original grade sheet is produced. The second safety check takes place when the "test" is compared with the original.

The individual I.B.M. cards again go through the machines, which turn out six or seven 8 by 5 inch white report sheets for each undergraduate, destined for student, advisor, Dean's office, veteran's office, scholarship office, or other interested agencies.

Original grade sheets are 100 percent rag paper, Kennedy said, and these are bound and filed for a permanent record. In addition, day pages, I.B.M. and permanent record cards are "kept forever" in University Hall basement storerooms.

When a severely marked undergraduate feels that he has been done an injustice, he is merely ushered to the instructor's grade sheets, where it is proved that the machines did not lie. A clerical error on the part of an instructor in making up the grade would have to be rectified by the teacher in charge of the course, who would report the error in writing to the Dean of the Faculty, the change to be approved by the Dean.

Board Must Pass on Changes

If the student feels that his instructor committed an error of judgment, Kennedy explained, he first has to convince the instructor of that fact. If the plaintiff succeeds, a vote of the Faculty must then be met which states. "All requests for changes in grades due to errors in judgment must be referred to the appropriate Administrative Board for investigation and report to the Faculty."

The Records Office is staffed by 22 clerical workers, in addition to five I.B.M. operators in the basement