In the wake of Monday’s meeting of the faculty of arts and sciences, faculty and students expressed mixed sentiments about possible changes to distributive requirements, grade inflation and course schedule changes. These proposals come following calls to increase “academic rigor” by College President Phil Hanlon as a part of his “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative.
These proposed ideas will potentially be put to a vote at the next faculty meeting on June 1.In the meeting, dean of the faculty Michael Mastanduno proposed a reexamination of the of the current distributive requirements to make them more flexible. In an interview following the meeting, Mastuanduno referenced the system prior to 1992, when students were required to take three courses each in social sciences, humanities and natural sciences. Biology professor and chair of the ad hoc committee on grading practices Mark McPeek also spoke about his concerns over grade inflation at the College and noted that the current rate of inflation is not sustainable. A change to the weekly schedule to include earlier class times and a revamped upperclassmen advising system were also proposed.
While many students first heard of potential changes in these areas as a part of Hanlon’s “Moving Dartmouth Forward” initiative, the majority of the work of the Curricular Review Committee was done in the 2012-2013 academic year, before Hanlon took office in June 2013, according to a report by the committee in the meeting’s agenda and attached materials. The committee’s recommendations on distributive requirements and the weekly class scheduled were reviewed by the Committee on Instruction, the Committee on Policy and the Committee of Chairs in the 2013-2014 academic year.
The agenda and attached materials were first posted on Dartblog on Monday. College spokesperson Diana Lawrence confirmed the authenticity of the materials.
Biology professor Roger Sloboda said that he disagreed with changing the distributive requirements, but added that it is always good to examine whether current policy fits the needs of students.
Sloboda said he thought the quantitative requirement should not be removed because he thinks all students should be able to interpret data and statistics, such as patterns of global warming or regression analyses.
Native American studies professor Sergei Kan, on the other hand, said that he approved of changing the distributive requirements for the most part, although he said that the non-Western requirement should not be discarded.
“If we don’t encourage that kind of education, I think we are eliminating one opportunity to expose [students] to other cultural worlds,” Kan said.
In response to the potential changes in distributive requirements, John Damianos ’16, who was on the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” presidential steering committee, said he was a huge proponent of a liberal arts education, and that students should be required to take courses out of their speciality or major.
“With the distribs, I really do think that students need to be exposed to other fields and have the urgings to do so,” he said.
On the topic of grade inflation, Sloboda said he thought the standards in his department were appropriate for students, citing that introductory biology lecture courses have a median grade of a B.
He did say, however, that grade inflation should be addressed as a whole, as some students are receiving disproportionately high grades.
“I think there is a lot to be said to doing something about giving everyone As, if everyone comes here and can get As then why are they coming here? They are already perfect,” Sloboda said.
He said that the quarter system has also contributed to academic rigor. He noted that when he started teaching “Cell Structure and Function,” the textbook was 400 pages in length and now it extends over 1,000 pages, but under the same time constraints of a 10-week term. He said that the faculty would continue to discuss academic rigor over the next few meetings over the term.
Women and gender studies professor Michael Bronski said that, while Dartmouth should always be looking to improve its academics and that students can always be doing better work, he does not think contrast today’s grades to those of the past is a fair comparison.
“I would say that, on the whole, all of my students are harder workers, better critical thinkers and better writers than my friends were in college 40 years ago,” he said. “I think people are doing better work frankly.”
Bronski attributed the difference to factors such as the internet, the media and changes in teaching methods.
He said that he thinks that as long as students are thinking and growing, grades are meaningless in the context of learning.
The new focus on academic rigor will also move the College’s image as a “party school” to a more “prestigious academic profile,” Bronski said, thus partially functioning as a public relations move.
Bronski said that Dartmouth has come a long way from the academic work of the 1970s and said that comparatively the College is much stronger.
Kan said that he supports curbing grade inflation.
“At an Ivy League college of this caliber, students should work hard to receive As, an A, A minus or even B plus should be worked hard for,” Kan said.
McPeek said that, if grade inflation were to continue at its current rate, by 2064 the average grade point average would be a 4.0, with it having increased by 0.5 in the last 50 years. He did say, however, that the grades themselves are not the issue, but rather that faculty members are not holding their students to the proper standards.
Professors have incentives to not offer hard courses, such as student evaluations and course enrollment, McPeek said.
McPeek said that the proposal is the first step toward decreasing grade inflation. If students were all achieving “excellent mastery” in a class, then that class is not pushing the students hard enough, McPeek said.
A result of grade inflation, McPeek said, is that students cannot get a sense of in which subject areas they excel.
Student Assembly president Frank Cunningham ’16, who also served on the presidential steering committee, said that while he supports the idea of making a more intellectual Dartmouth, the concept of increasing academic rigor makes him concerned for students’ mental health. While he believes that the College could have a more academic environment, the solution is not to increase coursework to the point where students spend all their time in the library.
Damianos said that issues such as grade inflation are hard to address as they are not unique to Dartmouth nor are the solutions easy to implement. He highlighted the Princeton University model of active grade deflation as an imperfect solution to this issue.
Damianos further said that in order for Dartmouth to address the problem of grade disparities between departments, the faculty of each department should reconsider what effort and work a student produces merits what grade.
“I think each department needs to have a serious conversation about what excellence looks like,” he said.
Of nine students interviewed by The Dartmouth, seven said they disapproved of any changes to grade inflation, and one said that students should wait to see the effects of the changes before making judgements.
These students said that classes are already demanding and require a lot of work.
Tatiana Saunders ’15 also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the proposed schedule changes.
“I know students who purposefully don’t take classes because of the time period, so people are not going to take these classes if they don’t want to,” she said.
Damianos also addressed the concept of academic rigor, as first used in Hanlon’s “Moving Dartmouth Forward” speech, calling the use of the specific term flawed as it failed to be taken completely seriously by the student body.
“It’s a joke that a lot of people make, because everyone knows that Dartmouth classes are challenging,” he said.
