Liberating the Liberal Arts

Last Friday, the Middlebury faculty voted to indefinitely renew the Pass/D/Fail program. The program permits students to take two courses for college credit, receivng a “Pass,” D or “Fail” in lieu of a traditional grade. The faculty also extended the deadline to invoke the Pass/D/Fail option — students now have four weeks to decide instead of two. This gives students more time to experience a class and complete more graded assignments before making their choice.

The editorial board commends the faculty for taking student input into consideration and voting in favor of the Pass/D/Fail program. Middlebury students, generally speaking, are risk averse. Many students are planning on attending graduate school, applying for fellowships and seeking jobs that value high GPAs. Even without these incentives, Middlebury students are typically high achievers and are naturally compelled to seek high grades, with no purpose beyond the pride of achieving Magna Cum Laude come graduation day. The Pass/D/Fail option encourages students to leave their comfort zones and incentivizes academic risk-taking, giving students the chance to explore a topic they are unfamiliar or un- comfortable with. The liberal arts education is characterized by both depth and breadth, and the Pass/D/Fail option allows students to broaden their horizons without fear of falling below their own standards.

Some faculty members expressed concerned about the program. Many professors are worried that students will use Pass/D/ Fail to “game the system” in order to protect their high GPAs without having to do as much work. The most frequent grade for students who invoked Pass/D/Fail is a B, demonstrating that the performance of Pass/D/ Fail students is typically average. We under- stand the weariness amongst some faculty over a GPA-driven student body. However, given that we attend a competitive institution of higher education where risk-aversion is both inherent and rewarded, we do not see how the presence or absence of Pass/D/Fail will change the culture. Students gravitate toward academic environments where they are comfortable and feel successful. Pass/D/ Fail allows students to feel a similar level of comfort in an unfamiliar discipline. Two Pass/D/Fail classes taken outside of one’s major and distribution requirements will not significantly affect a student’s ability to graduate with honors. Two of the 36 credits needed to graduate from Middlebury should permissibly become an opportunity for risk and exploration.

Our time is both valuable and finite. Taking a course Pass/D/Fail allows students to test out a new interest without taking on too much additional stress or compromising their focus on their major. If he or she has the time, a student may be able to do perfectly well in a course outside of his or her major or area of interest. But rarely do overscheduled, overcommitted Middlebury students have that extra time and energy. The Pass/D/Fail option gives students the chance to pursue a subject that would normally require a disproportionate percentage of their attention. This is not laziness; rather, it is time management, a critical skill that college does and ought to teach us. We concede that perhaps some students are “gaming the system” by putting less effort into a class that they would ordinarily take for a grade. However, this does not diminish the importance of having the option for students to take advantage of opportunities they would not otherwise seek out. The benefits, in our opinion, outweigh the possible costs to academic rigor.

While extending Pass/D/Fail is a progressive step in encouraging exploration and reducing stress, we can continue to look to our peer institutions for inspiration. Other colleges and universities have taken a more lenient approach to Pass/D/Fail. Students at Williams College, often ranked the most academically rigorous of the NESCAC schools, may take up to three courses on a Pass/Fail basis and have up to the tenth week of the semester to decide. Bowdoin allows students to take up to four Pass/D/Fail courses and have up to the sixth week of classes. Harvard University does not place a specific limit on the number of pass/fail classes students can take, though they cannot be used to satisfy any requirements. Yale has a similar policy to Harvard, and even allows students who invoked Pass/Fail to switch back to a letter grade until shortly after midterms if they find themselves doing better than anticipated. These examples should quell any fears that expanding Pass/Fail comes at the expense of academic integrity.

We the students must challenge ourselves by fully and authentically using the Pass/D/ Fail option. A Political Science major who uses Pass/D/Fail to take a difficult History course has, perhaps, not fully utilized this opportunity. We encourage students to step outside their comfort zones and take courses that will push them to think differently. Pass/D/Fail is an opportunity for English students to study Computer Science and Biology majors to study Classics. We ought to use the Pass/D/Fail option as productively as we can. There are 34 other chances to play it safe at Middlebury. Let’s take this one risk and use it to add unforeseen value to our education.