MBA Faculty Delays a Proposal To Radically Overhaul Grading

The Business School's MBA Faculty sent back to committee last Friday a radical grading-reform proposal which would have reduced the number of grading categories from the present 15 to only three.

Under the proposed system, the top sixth of each class would be placed in Category I, the middle two-thirds in Category II, and the bottom sixth in Category III. The Academic Performance Committee would review a student's record if he placed in Category III for more than half of his courses.

The grading-reform idea was drafted during the summer by the Business School's most powerful committee, the Policy and Operating Committee (POC). The proposal is once again on the POC's desk and will probably resurface next Spring.

Charles J. Christenson, chairman of the POC, defended the proposed grading reform. He said a grading system should be used only to decide who gets a degree, and not for the purposes of feedback and motivation.

Bruce Fowler, chairman of the Student Association's education committee, favored the delay. "There were an awful lot of students who thought this thing was being railroaded through." Fowler, a second-year MBA student, said that students objected to "the whole thing being on a curve and having a quota for each category. A lot of people felt that Group III condemns one-sixth of the class to bad grades.