Faculty To Submit Grade Inflation Report

After months of departmental review of grading procedures, administrators will recieve a set of faculty suggestions on how to curb grade inflation today.

But most professors agree that getting the Harvard Faculty to agree on any concrete proposal to adress grade inflation will be no easy task.

In December, Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82 gave department chairs 16 years of grading data for classes taught in their department as a way to initiate a discussion among the Faculty on grade inflation—with the directive to report back to her by today.

Pedersen says she hopes that through this discussion, the Faculty can arrive at some consensus.

“This isn’t a Faculty that anyone imposes anything on,” she says.

Such a lack of agreement among Faculty was the problem five years ago when the issue of grade inflation last came before the Education Policy Committee (EPC). The committee advises the dean of the Faculty and the dean of undergraduate education on curricular matters.

The issue resurfaced again last spring as part of the EPC’s periodic review of grading procedures.

In order to make this year’s effort more productive, Pedersen established a subcommittee of the EPC to focus on grade inflation. This subcommittee will review the reports submitted by the departments and report back to the entire committee.

The EPC then hopes to bring a recommendation for grading reform to a vote before the full Faculty by the end of the academic year.

A Question of Autonomy

Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz notes that there is a split between those Faculty members who want to maintain their autonomy in grading and those who are requesting guidance.

“Faculty autonomy is of great value and should not be breached lightly,” says Pearson Professor of Modern Mathematics and Mathematical Logic Warren D. Goldfarb ’69.

According to some, such a belief leaves grading at the prerogative of the individual professor.

“Even department chairs never get involved [in grading]—no one wants to be a policeman,” says Richard A. Wrangham, Moore professor of biological anthropology and head tutor of the anthropology department.

But Williams Professor of History and Political Science and Chair of the Department of Government Roderick MacFarquhar says maintaining such independence stands in the way of an effective means to check grade inflation.

“The solution cannot come from departments because there is a wide divergence between the different parts of undergraduate education—the deans must decide,” he says.

Possible Solutions

Pedersen and the EPC have already raised several options for University Hall-directed reform this year.

The Faculty have seen one of these proposals before.

Five years ago the EPC considered instituting an enhanced transcript—in which the median grade for the course would be printed next to the grade the student earned. But the proposal never made it to a full vote in the Faculty, after the Faculty Council decided the plan lacked broad support among professors.

“When an individual [professor’s] mean grade becomes public knowledge, it might be incentive to prevent that average from becoming too high,” said Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of the Classics Mark J. Schiefsky.

But Pedersen says she sees some faults with the system.

“Although the system of median grades may make it easier to differentiate among students, it doesn’t help us internally [to solve grade inflation],” she says.

Such a transcript was instituted at Dartmouth starting with the Class of 1998—hence its nickname, “the Dartmouth transcript.”

Among Pedersen’s recent suggestions, Faculty members were most opposed to imposing a University-wide curve or quota for the number of A-range grades—potential solutions that would pose the greatest threat to their autonomy.

Faculty said they would oppose such proposals, arguing that a uniform solution makes little sense give the variety of classes offered.

“In a class of six people it isn’t rare to have three students with A’s,” says Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies Tomas O. Cathasaigh.

And other professors say they oppose the entire philosophy behind curving grades.

“I would not be in favor of any situation in which there would be a curve and the grade students would receive would not accurately reflect what they had learned” says Christine M. Korsgaard, Porter professor of philosophy and chair of the department.

Ultimately, Pedersen says she feels the most likely results of the ongoing conversation on grade inflation will be to better define what each grade means—allowing students to better understand the quality of their work.

“It is more useful to define what we mean by work at difference levels than to say your course should have this distribution,” she says. “The complexity of the problem comes from the fact that we desire this to be a science and it’s not a science.”

—Kate L. Rakoczy contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellaro can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.