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The Dartmouth
November 10, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth
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At Harvard, as the grades rise, so do the disagreements

By Tara Kyle | February 27, 2002

While debate over grade inflation has challenged old habits at campuses across the country, nowhere does pressure for reform loom so large as at media magnet Harvard University. The nation's oldest and most famous university also leads the Ivy League in one not entirely desirable category -- last year Harvard handed out honors degrees with nearly twice the frequency of any of its peers. Nearly half of the grades granted at Harvard last year fell into the A and A- categories -- meanwhile, grades in the C range composed only 4.9 percent of the total. These figures represent marked change over grades given in 1985, which Harvard's dean of undergraduate education Susan Pedersen released in a report on grade inflation sent to faculty late last year.

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Unique median-grade policy does not stop inflation

By Charles Gardner | February 27, 2002

Nearly eight years after Dartmouth moved to thwart grade inflation by including median grades on student transcripts, students are receiving more A's than ever before, while some are concerned that the system unfairly penalizes students and promotes competition. Unique in higher education, the policy mandates the inclusion on transcripts of median grades and total enrollment in classes alongside student grades.

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College once embraced grade policies, now has none

By Bente Shoen | February 27, 2002

A survey of the Special Collection's library reveals a little known feature of Dartmouth academic history: the most recent College grading policy dates to the early 1950s. "We just don't seem to have one any more," said Provost Barry Scherr, who has been at Dartmouth since the early 1970s. Now, instead of a top-down policy, grading is handled largely by individual instructors and somewhat at the departmental level. This disintegration of policy corresponds directly with grade inflation: the overall College GPA has increased by an average of .01 per year over the last 25 years, and this trend appears to have begun in the 1960s, a decade after the publication of Dartmouth's last official policy. Indeed, Dartmouth's Institutional Research Office put out a statistical report in 1971 outlining a decade of grade inflation. Not only has no centralized College policy existed for some time, but even departments shy from standardizing grades internally. History department chair Mary Kelley said her department has no written or unwritten policy and that, as far as she knows, there has been no discussion of moving in that direction.

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Upcoming books to look at Zantop deaths

By Alison Schmauch | February 27, 2002

Last year's murders of professors Half and Susanne Zantop prompted three books recounting the shocking crime from very different perspectives. One book, by Eric Francis, is due for release on April 1, just a few weeks before the trial of suspect Robert Tulloch is slated to begin. Francis, a freelance writer for People, the Boston Globe and the New York Times, has followed the case from the beginning.

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Bobbitt: CIA needs to reform

By Nathaniel Ward | February 27, 2002

An attack with a weapon of mass destruction and other disasters will befall the United States in the next six years unless serious reforms are made in intelligence services, former National Security Council member Philip Chase Bobbitt said yesterday. Bobbitt discussed the ways in which the United States can avoid the disaster, and warned against certain policy options. Sounding a note of skepticism, he said the construction of what he considers an "unachievable" national missile defense system instead of the more plausible "theater defense" among individual allied nations is highly problematic. In the final Montgomery Endowment lecture, Bobbitt said the United States must work to protect international infrastructure, not just its own, and that it must establish an international search warrant to monitor suspected terror groups.

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Squatting returns for juniors, seniors

By Sarah Betts | February 27, 2002

Squatting, the room assignment procedure that allows students to remain in the same cluster for the upcoming term, will be expanded to include nearly all residence halls, according to the Office of Residential Life room-draw booklet, released yesterday. Residents of all clusters except East Wheelock, the River apartments, the River 'tree houses', CFS/affinity housing and all-freshman housing will have the option to choose a room within their present cluster during a separate housing assignment night.

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Deflation or inflation? FSPs mean alternative grading

By Victoria McGrane | February 27, 2002

A term spent in an exotic locale, replete with little work, plenty of travel, and learning focused on experience. Or the most vigorous 10 weeks of your Dartmouth career, with highlights including tough classes, tougher grading, and barely enough free time to notice you're not in Hanover anymore. Either one could describe the experience of the 63 percent of Dartmouth students who participate in the College's 30 off-campus programs. The College grants each department total autonomy over the design and administration of its own off-campus programs, a policy that allows individual departments to craft a system they feel best benefits their students. The flip side of this policy, however, is that all study abroad grades are not created equal. One abroad amenity offered by many departments is the opportunity to take courses at a foreign university, taught by faculty from that university, in addition to courses with the Dartmouth faculty member who leads each trip. When it comes exam time, however, these professors do not use the letter-based grading scale of the American university system.

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Artists lament vandalism

By Richard Lazarus | February 26, 2002

Dartmouth senior art majors and a wide range of administrators and faculty members met last night to try to understand how Friday's devastating vandalism of the art department's studio affected its targets -- as people, students and artists. The evening was marked by the students' widespread belief that the only person or people who could have committed the vandalism were those within the department, and, more than that, those with an understanding of art. The placement of clay pieces in the sculpture studio tool room, the fact that the vandal knew minute details of where studio art majors' work was kept, the way he or she appears to have entered the studio and the choice of using yellow paint -- the color that the sculpture department uses to mark its equipment -- to mark the work all contributed to this feeling. "It was the expression of someone close to us, by an artist," said studio art senior major Laura Tepper '02.

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Koop: state needs anti-tobacco funding

By Alison Schmauch | February 26, 2002

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop '37 recently appeared before the New Hampshire state legislature to promote a new bill that would increase state funding for smoking prevention programs. New Hampshire currently receives $46 million every year from a national settlement against the tobacco companies, but only $1.3 million of that money is reserved for funding smoking-prevention programs or to treat addicts.

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Plea deal to protect J. Parker

By Megh Duwadi | February 25, 2002

James Parker, Robert Tulloch's alleged accomplice in the murder of Professors Half and Susanne Zantop, will face no criminal charges related to previous attempts to break into homes in Rochester and Vershire, Vt.

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Poor economy leads to fewer internships

By Megh Duwadi | February 25, 2002

As a nationwide economic recession continues, cutbacks and cancellations are affecting summer internship programs as well as permanent employment opportunities. Dartmouth students have expressed some concern over whether the faltering economy will impact their internship options, Director of Career Services Skip Sturman said.

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Students deliberate issues at SA dinner

By Kaitlin Bell | February 25, 2002

Students, administrators, and members of Student Assembly convened in Collis Commonground last night for the Assembly's Illuminations dinner to discuss a wide range of topics, including how to facilitate communication between different campus groups. Participants grouped themselves at tables, each of which had a designated topic.

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