Grade inflation in colleges recently has grabbed national attention — and one school has decided it’s time for professors to pay the price.
Point Park University in Pittsburgh has penalized six professors for giving A’s to more than half of their students. Instead of receiving their normal $2,000 merit award, the professors were given only $1,000.
Point Park officials penalized the professors after the vice president for academic affairs sent a memo in August urging the faculty not to inflate grades.
“The purpose of the memo was to send the message to grade realistically,” said Virginia Frizzi, director of public relations at Point Park.
Frizzi said Point Park President Katherine Henderson decided to reduce the merit awards after an internal study showed some professors awarded A’s to up to 80 percent of their students.
Grade inflation also has been an issue at Northwestern, and some school officials said they are divided over how to deal with it.
In November 2000, University Provost Lawrence Dumas told the Chicago Tribune there was no grade inflation at NU. But because evidence proved otherwise, he asked Stephen Fisher, associate provost for undergraduate education, to conduct a study.
Fisher’s report found that the average GPA had risen about .02 each year from 1982 to 1998. Students earned A’s or A-minuses about 55 percent of the time in the average class during Fall Quarter 2001, a 20 percent increase from the number awarded in 1985.
Although many NU officials said they acknowledged the rise in grades, most said Point Park’s actions were extreme and said they would oppose the implementation of a similar program at NU.
“I think it would be an outrageous tactic,” said Stephen Carr, McCormick’s associate dean of undergraduate engineering.
Several faculty members said grading is based on a student’s performance in class, and no one should judge a professor’s evaluation of a student.
“It is their opinion of a student’s work,” said Richard Weimer, Weinberg’s assistant dean for undergraduate academic affairs. “We have no right to step into the process.”
Peter Webster, a Music professor and the school’s associate dean for academic affairs and research, also said professors need independence when grading.
“An outside force doesn’t know what happened inside the classroom,” Webster said.
Medill Prof. Roger Boye, who also serves as the school’s assistant dean, said professors should not be penalized. But he said they need to be fair and objective when evaluating a student’s work.
“We expect the students to be honest, so teachers should be honest also,” he said.
Boye said while grades have risen at Medill, the quality of the freshman class has improved each year. But when grade inflation occurs, it misleads students, he said.
“In the real world, everyone doesn’t get A’s,” Boye said.
Other professors said they think Point Park’s actions were reasonable.
“There’s no reason the average (grade in a class) shouldn’t be in the B’s and the C’s,” said biology lecturer Gary Galbreath, adding that the average grade in his class is a B-minus.
Economics lecturer Eric Schulz said each department should have grading guidelines and then give professors feedback. Schulz said he is against grade inflation because it gives an inaccurate picture of the students to potential employers, graduate schools and to the students themselves.
“You want to reward those students who work hard and who are smart,” he said.
