Faculty Gets Grading Studies

In an effort to prevent grade inflation and insure equitable standards, the Office of Instructional Research and Evaluation recently sent each faculty member detailed reports comparing the average grades earned by students in their classes last year with the overall marks the same group received in other courses.

The reports--which break down each course's enrollment by sex, year of graduation, and concentration--"invite professors to be as equitable as possible" by showing them whether they differ significantly from University-wide norms, Dean K. Whitla, director of the office, said yesterday.

Letters accompanying the reports do not urge professors who award higher grades to toughen their standards, Whitla said, adding that the Faculty Council--which urges him to disseminate the information--"wanted simply to provide information, not to give advice." He said that "It's an individual faculty member's own responsibility to determine his own grading policies."

Undergraduate grades have not risen in the last six years, and have dropped slightly in the past two, the letters state. The average undergraduate grade currently hovers between B and B-plus, Whitla said.

The letters note that 16.3 per cent of undergraduate grades are A's and 20.9 per cent are A-minuses. But, Whitla noted, some courses give significantly more or fewer high grades than the University-wide average.

"If we could get rid of some of the variation between courses it would improve the (grading) process a bit," Whitla added, explaining that professors are informed if their average grades are higher than usual by a positive "course grading index" (CGI) and lower by a negative CGI.

Whitla declined to identify professors with particularly high or low CGIs.

Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53, professor of Government--whom Whitla called "concerned" that the University-wide grade average "hadn't come back to the standards of previous years"--said yesterday the CGI of Government 10, "Introduction to Political Philosophy," which he teaches, "is what you might call minus."

"Inflation is already too great. Honors grades are given out with abandon," Mansfield said, adding he "tried to urge" the Faculty council two years ago to encourage professors to limit the number of high grades they award. This is the second year Whitla has distributed the reports.

Calling A and A-minus grades "excellent and excellent-minus," Mansfield added, "I can't believe 37 per cent of Harvard students are doing excellent or excellent-minus. That degree of inflation indicates a bad frame of mind."