Dartmouth Will Consider Abolishing Letter Grades

Dartmouth college may attempt to end "grade grubbing" by eliminating letter grades next year, despite the opposition of more than two-thirds of the student body.

The proposal to substitute "honors," "satisfactory," and "unsatisfactory" for the traditional letters was submitted this fall by the faculty Committee on Educational Policy as part of a continuing study of the Dartmouth curriculum. The faculty will vote today.

The recommendation acknowledges "that students are more concerned with grades than they are with the substance of education," Roy P. Forster, professor of Biological Sciences and former chairman of the Committee, explained Wednesday.

"Segmented grades" aggravate the pressure which Forster hopes the proposed system would ease. "It's much better to strive for honors than to try to go from a C plus to a B minus," he noted. An honor grade would be broader than the present A.

The small grade distinctions also en courage objective examinations, while a qualitative grade would lead to more meaningful essay exams, Forster added.

Dartmouth students do not agree. According to a poll by The Dartmouth, the daily campus newspaper, 69 per cent are opposed to the change on the grounds that it would not alleviate "mark grubbing," that it would lower motivation, and that it would affect admission to graduate school.

Forster agreed with the students that the graduate schools might object "because we would be giving them less help and making them look for other qualifications." But he feels that Dartmouth's stature would influence the graduate schools "not to lean on grades."

If the proposal is adopted, Dartmouth would come closest to an ungraded curriculum in the Ivy League. But the faculty, which is now split about fifty-fifty, is not likely to give Forster the large mandate he considers essential for the change.

Later in the year the faculty will consider another recommendation by the Committee which would leave final examinations to the discretion of each professor. The choice would be between a three-hour final or none at all.

Not Harvard, However

There is no indication that anything like the Dartmouth proposal will be considered by Harvard. "I'm as interested as anybody in cutting down on grades," Dean Monro said yesterday.

He stressed, however, that at Harvard one half of the work of the junior and senior years can be "virtually ungraded" in the form of tutorial and independent study.

Monro noted that grades are less necessary in "small groups or small colleges, like Bennington," where professors have "personal knowledge of the students."