Faculty turns focus to grading

Author: Jason F. Siegel

In a report recently completed by the Ad Hoc Committee on Grading, a variety of non-binding recommendations to reduce and track the effects of grade inflation at Middlebury College were suggested, including the publishing of the median grade of a course next to a student's grade, the elimination of the "A+" and the education of new students and faculty alike in regards to grading practices at Middlebury.

The Committee, chaired by Associate Professor of Biology Andrea Lloyd, convened throughout the fall to look at extensive data collected by the Registrar, the Admissions Office and the Student Educational Affairs Committee to identify which factors actually contributed to grade inflation. It also spoke extensively with members of the Career Services Office (CSO), Pre-Law Adviser Murray Dry and Pre-Med Adviser Arlinda Wickland to gauge the impact of a student's GPA on post-graduate employment. For the faculty's opinions on the culture of grading, the group used notes from groups formed at the Bread Loaf faculty meeting in September. Though many of the factors were already presumed true by the faculty, there were also many results that surprised even the members of the Committee.

Perhaps the most unexpected finding of the Committee was that the mode of assessment of a class, i.e. papers versus exams, was largely responsible for the frequency of "A's" in a given course. When controlling for size and level of the course, courses that graded mostly based on papers were more likely to have higher numbers of "A's," a difference that varied little even across divisions. In addition, small classes have a much higher proportion of "A's," and with some exceptions, the same is true of upper-level courses.

Another problem addressed in the report is the different values that students and faculty attach to "B's." Though faculty might believe that getting a "B" is in fact a good grade, conversations with Dry, Wickland and the CSO revealed, at least anecdotally, that potential employers and graduate schools place a very high premium on "A's," which puts students' and professors' values of grades in conflict. The report also states that the number of incoming students graduating in the top 10 percent of their high school class has steadily increased over the last 10 years, meaning that there might well be large numbers of students who come to Middlebury having never received a "B."

The report had six principal recommendations, which will then have to be approved by the Educational Affairs Committee (EAC). The most noteworthy proposal was to add the median grade of each course next to the student's grade on the transcript along with the percentage of classes in which a student's grade was above the median. This provides more information on what the grade means and contextualizes lower grades in certain divisions. In a similar vein, the Ad Hoc Committee recommended the elimination of the "A+" in favor of a citation system in which a professor could put a citation next to any grade to comment on exceptionally good or bad work. In this way the "A" would be strengthened as being the highest possible grade and a professor could explain varied performance in a course.

Two other recommendations included proposals to educate new students and faculty respectively about grading at Middlebury. Part of this education would include definitions in the College Handbook about what "A" through "F" work represents, as well as tracking the success of recent graduates to give students a good idea about the relative significance of the GPA. For new faculty, many of whom come directly from large universities, there would be a section of the New Faculty Seminar during J-Term devoted to discussion of grading practices. "Grading is a really important thing that we do," said Lloyd, "but we don't talk about it enough with our students or with each other."

Another recommendation was to eliminate the need for faculty to file a report when a student in his or her class earns a "D." Currently each faculty member must do this each time he or she gives a "D" or an "F," though the Committee recommends that this change since a "D" is still a passing grade. The final recommendation was to reconvene the Ad Hoc Committee in five years to re-evaluate the grading practices at Middlebury.

The report is now with the EAC and will be released to the general community some time in early spring.