Thursday, September 9, 1976 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three Thursday, September 9, 1976 I l-IIEl MICHIGAN DAILY11111Page ThreeI u' facing declining status? By JIM TOBIN BUT UPON first setting their Many TAs possess enthusiasm The University of Michigan tender feet in the yawning lec- for their students as well as heiesitsyloei the hichya ture halls of Angell Hall or the their field, but many teach only sitsof American academia-a gigan- Chemistry Building or the Mod- to pay their way through grad- tic state - supported institution ern Languages Building-places uate school or fulfill degree re- wich ranks in prestige with in which most undergraduates quirements or both. Such is not Harvard, Columbia, Stanford spend most of their first year in the ideal motivation for astute and the other privatel-endowed Ann Arbor .- they are taken teaching; there are many fine dP .taback, often dismayed. Three TAs here, but others who are giants. Surveys across the nar- hundred or so of their new-found less than adequate. tion rank the Umersity-par- colleagues trudge in with them ticularly; its graduate schools- !Tu rsprosaecn ith the best.raas a professor strides grandly founded by the seeming con- in . ionto the stage before them to; tradiction between the Univer- Perusing college catalogues in expound, usually without inter-- ' their high school counselors' of ruption or discussion, for the sity s prestigious ratings and its fices, prospective Michigan un- better part of the next hour. apparent neglect of the under- dergraduates encounter s u c h graduate population. They or high endorsements as the 1973- After the monologue, the year- their parents are sending in 74 Blau-Margulies study, which lings stagger to their first dis- prodigious sums of money to ranks the University in the top cussion sections, praying for de- attend the school, after all, ten in the nation in thirteen out liverance in a more personal and the unfulfilled expectations of eighteen professional fields. setting. They may be lucky and of high school often provoke Evidence like this is impres- land a teaching assistant (TA) bitter disillusionment. sive, and often convinces appli-j who is more interested in edu- WHERE LIES the University's cants that Michigan is the place cation than in fulfilling credit greatness, they ask, if not in for them. demands, or they may not. the classroom? What justifies such a reputa- ing. He holds that a university tion around the world if one's must encourage intellectual in- English composition section is tvestigation for its own sake, or taught by some semi-articulate at least for its transmission to a half-wit, scant months out of an sector wider than the university undergraduate program? itself. He also claims that the Why are chunks of endow- "verve of the teaching assistant, ment and federal appropriations the closeness to the field, the poured into research while un- freshness of the approach" in dergraduates lose out? the TA program compensates to RATHER self-conscious in its a degree for the relative lack of unique role in American higher senior faculty contact. TAs, he education, and under the sort of says, are also able to transmit financial pressure not borne by the wisdom of noted professors a Harvard or a Stanford, the to the undergraduates because University must deal with the of their availability at the grad- question of what constitutes its uate level. greatness quite directly; it must University President Robben take pains to strike a balance Fleming, who admits he would between the divergent and often someday like to return to the directly opposing views of the , law clasroom, echoes Sussman's University community. I emphasis of the importance of The dichotomy between re- a blend between teaching and search and teaching, so violatile research, while admitting that it an issue to many who feel that is occasionally difficult to de- ., i i i i 1 4 i ?{ i I neorthe orther eceves'1V Qtoof Gra des on By JEFF RISTINE When Gerald Ford graduated from the Uni- versity in 1935, his transcript carried four A's (including his grade for American Govern-a ment), eight C's (two of them in economics classes), and B's for all his other courses. If he were to take those classes today however, his record would probably show many more A's, a few P's, and a slew of plusses and min- usses. Why? Because of grade inflation. Just one of several new trends in the evalua- tion of academic performance, grade inflation has had a profound impact on students every- where. University freshpersons with GPA's measured on a scale of zero-to-four, now aver- age near 3.0 (B) rather than at C, the tradi- tional average score. AND ADMINISTRATORS, convinced that grade inflation overstates the academic achievement of poorer students, have taken steps to reverse, or at least soften, the effect of the trend. The LSA faculty last April narrowly approv- ed a proposal to place course average grades next to each grade on student transcripts, so that the student's performance can be readily compared to that of his or her class. In some instances, therefore, what may at first appear to be a very good grade could show up as nothing more than the class aver- age or worse. The new system may be im- plemented this fall if factors of cost and extra work do not prove prohibitive. The administration had the same goal in mind a year ago, when the University's gov- erning Board of Regents approved a slate of proposals which included the introduction of a plus and minus grading system. Instructors now have the option of assign- ing, for example, an A- (3.7 honor points) or a B+ (3.3) for final course grades in LSA and the engineering school, whereas an A, B, C, D, E system was used before. THE PLUS-MINUS system may have hurt some students. Obviously, a B- is less impres- sive than a B, and professors may find it eas- ier to give students the lower grade in "bor- derline" cases. But it also may boost the morale of other students who slip by a course with a C+ in- stead of a C. However, the straight A student has nothing to gain. LSA faculty members recently turned down a proposal which would have awarded 4.3 honor points for A+ grades. The grading changes may heighten the al- ready highly-competitive effects of grading, but students still have options to reduce the pres- sure. LSA students may now elect up to one- fourth of their total credit hours on a pass-fail much favor, is seen by Univer- sity leaders as a blend of mu- tually , beneficial entities, not a confrontation between opposing h lu ll forces. While many students feel that a professor preoccupied with research or publishing can- basis, excepting courses required for concen- not devote himself or herself to bation edetialud unes- the classroom, administrators trtn Ri t Clfind the two inseperable. At the College (RC), which "The conception that research' a pass-fail system supplemented by written diminishes the quality of teach- evaluations, Assistant to the Director for Coun- ing represents a misunderstand- seling Carole LaMantia says 'some students ing of the inextricable link be- fund they often learn and retain more in classes tween the two," declares Alfred graded pass-fail than they would have under Sussman, dean of the graduate he traditional letter-graded method, school and professor of biology. "The rimnaltrgradaaed ethatyd. are"In the classroom the person at' "The primary advantages are that you are ~,the top of the field will give the not trying to learn under a competitive situa- students the excitement and the tion, and memorizing material to take tests frontier of the field. with," LaMantia says. "The whole competitive, aspect is out." "M OSsT PROFESSORS aare hams," Sussman continues. "I' AND WHIE some graduate schools, she went into research and teaching' adds "would prefer not to deal with r like to teach well. The most evaluations," the acceptance rate of RC stu- devastating thing that can hap- dents into those schools is an impressive 70 pen to a teacher is to feel that per cent. the edge is off, that you're not But at the Pilot Program in Alice Lloyd, stu- on the frontier. Most research- dent dissatisfaction with the exclusive pass-fail ers I know love to teach. The system led administrators to experiment with ? best minds are the most exposi- optional letter grading for three of the Pro- nite a class." gram's 15 seminars. Ninety per cent of the 'But Sussman does not defend students enrolled picked the letter-grade op- research purely because, in his tion, and a Pilot Program poll showed that last view, it makes for better teach- year's freshpersons preferred the pass-fail with--- letter - grade option system over strict pass- fail by a margin of five to one. "Students have an apprehension - which is overdrawn, I think - about the way graduate schools, especially law schools, and even busi- fend research to demanding taxpayers. "IT'S NOT DIFFICULT in health 'sciences or engineering -those fields where people see tangible results," he says. "It's I harder in the humanities. For, instance, if you have a history professor working on a history of the Napoleonic era, people3 say, 'Well, we've got a thousand! histories of Napoleon.'" It is difficult for students to recognize benefits from works they never read and research. projects which leave them un- touched. Still, Sussman and Fleming strike an important chord in their belief in the Uni- versity as fertile ground for the quest for knowledge. Whether that knowledge will be distri- buted to the undergraduates How good is the education these University students are receiving? more effectly in the future is a question that will nag adminis- trators and faculty for years, if not for the duration of the uni- versity system as we know it now. Fleming says "it's going to be difficult" to close the gap be- tween profesor and student. Budget restrictions, the time consumed by research, and the resistance to change of many professors will probably render it impossible. Why not join the DAILY? THE DAILY IS A GREAT PLACE TO: 0 meet other good people * drink 5c Cokes " learn the operations of a newspaper 0 write stories i see your name in print * earn a little money Come on down to 420 Maynard anytime and join the business, news, sports or photography staffs! 'BRIARWOOD ENTR IIMN aD Take a bus to Briarwood! Restaurants, more than 100 stores, movies - and lspecial events for fun! A favorite spot for U. of M. students! HOURS: 9:30 A.M./9:30 P.M. MON. THRU SAT. NOON TO 5 P.M. SUNDAY BRIARWOOD Take State Street to t-94, Ann Arbor nessmen. regard pass-fail," says Pilot Program Director Margot Morrow. "Some of them fear pass-fail will hinder them." MORROW SAYS success with a pass-fail sys- tem is difficult if it is used only in isolation, as it is at the University. Some students simply do not work as hard as they would otherwise, which may demoralize instructors or other stu- dents. An exclusive pass-fail system, Morrow be- lieves, would make students more adventurous in their course selections. "The ultimate problem is . . . if the Univer- sity doesn't say what quality of student it is producing, this puts a burden on other agen- cies," Morrow says, and there will be heavier reliance on the standardized Graduate Record Examination (GRE) tests. As long as there are grades, however, stu- dents - and employers - will probably pay at- tention to them. Some comfort comes from a recent scholarly study of the subject: "Researchers have in fact had great diffi- culty in demonstrating that grades in school are related to any other behavior of import- ance. It seems so evident to educators that those who do well in their classes must go on to do better in life that they systemically have disregarded evidence to the contrary that has been accumulating for some time." E--- _ -- Take note You and your money deserve the best in personal service INBT i Worried About Getting the RIGHT Campus Apartment for Fall? Relax, Rent from McKinley AND Rent Some Peace of Mind WILLIAM a 0. Campus a Office All banks are not alike. When you get to know National Bank and Trust, you can see that the difference here is a tradition of per- sonal service and attention to detail. Of course, you'll find really practical financial services, too. 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