DISCIPLINARY MARKS

The official status of Professor and student is a question of long standing that has provided material for much discussion. Even today, in the minds of some, all the perplexing points have not as yet been cleared up. The problem of so-called "disciplinary" marks is one of these points.

In former times, before the College Office and the Recorder's staff had acquired their present state of efficiency the individual professor had almost entire control over his classes--marks, attendance and discipline. But now, with attendance and discipline under the control of the Office, the professor, at least theoretically, is concerned solely with lectures and grades. He is no longer a quasi-schoolmaster; he is a teacher in the fuller sense of the word.

The majority of the professors realize this; yet there are those who either refuse to accept or else misunderstand their present position. Too many undergraduates this year have had their final marks lowered because the professor felt that their slack attendance was sufficient cause for "discipline"--because he refused to recognize the fact that the responsibility for their collegiate behavior was no longer in his hands. It is disheartening, to say the very least, after passing a course fairly, and with no summons from the Office, to have one's grade lowered at the insistence of an instructor who considers that his lectures have been slighted, and that the "morale" of his course must be upheld. Several of such cases this year have resulted in placing the offenders on probation.

Not that a continued string of cuts is advocated; that were folly of the worst sort. But surely full credit should be given for work accomplished and knowledge gained. The class-room is, first and foremost, a place in which something is learned. And a mark should be the testament of knowledge of the course, not the representation of the professor's personal feelings. Universities have long since outgrown the "little red school-house"; the schoolmaster attitude should also be a thing of the past.