CUE Tables Nagy's Proposal Changing Make-Up Test Policy

The Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) yesterday agreed to end two months of debate on make-up exam policy without suggesting an alternative to the present system, after members failed in a two-hour session to find a plan they felt the Faculty Council would accept.

The Committee decided to debate the issue again "at an indefinite time." It asked Gregory J. Nagy, professor of Greek and Latin and author of a proposal on the exams discussed by CUE since December, to revise his proposal.

The unanimous decision to suspend judgement on Nagy's plan came after Dean K. Whitla, director of the office of instructional research and evaluation, told the committee that the number of students taking make-up exams has increased throughout the Ivy League, "so we're not in bad shape."

Obstacles

Moments earlier, committee chairman George C. Homans '32 had told CUE that Nagy's plan, with or without amendments suggested by committee members, would probably encounter "trouble" in the Faculty Council, which would have to approve the proposal.

The proposal--aimed in part at reducing the number of "sick-outs" of final exams and at freeing professors from having to draft make-up exams for students who missed regularly-scheduled finals--would give instructors three options:

* a course could continue current practice and include a final exam and a make-up test for those who missed it;

* it could have no scheduled final exam at all; or

* it could offer a final exam but no make-up, basing the course grade of a student on his previous work.

Professors accepting the third option would be expected to place less emphasis on the final and "afford ample opportunity for evaluation of the student's work above and beyond the mid-term examination."

But several committee members said the third option would "eliminate make-ups but encourage sick-outs. "Harry R. Lewis, associate professor of Computer Science, said CUE members "have to take a moral stance" on the issue and dissuade students from avoiding final exams.

Adam and Eve

Lewis likened the adoption of the third plan to supporting "a system for living in sin" once one realized sin could not be abolished. He added, "The general perception would be that it was okay not to show up for a final exam."

But Nagy responded that the option--which would reduce the "Armageddon mentality of finals" by urging professors to increase the importance of earlier work--"wouldn't institutionalize [sin] in the form of a make-up exam, which lets a student take an unfair advantage by saying he's sick."

He argued that under the option, professors would have seen enough of a student's work to be able to detect "any trend of improvement" demonstrated by a student who didn't attend a final.

Know It All

The committee also disagreed over how much final exams should count under the option. Michael Walsh '83, a nonvoting member of CUE, said a final counting 25 per cent of a student's course grade--as Nagy's proposal suggests--would play too small a role in determining a coursewide grade, adding, "What matters is what you know at the end of the course. In some cases it should be 100 per cent."

Others criticized the proposal for penalizing students who missed the final exam because of genuine illness. Charles S. Boulas '83, another member of CUE, noted that the double-asterisk Nagy proposed to place on the transcripts of students whose grades were based on coursework not including a final might reflect poorly on the student forced to miss the final for legitimate reasons.

Nonetheless, committee members generally agreed on the importance of including additional evaluations of a student's work during a term besides just a midterm and a final.

Persuasion

Homans, who said he favored Nagy's proposal, noted that the plan's mixed reception within the Educational Resources Group--a student committee that sends members to CUE--meant that "we're never going to get it through the Faculty Council."

After the meeting, he attributed the proposal's tabling to "a general feeling that it's going to be hard to provide the legislation in enough detail and with legislation in enough detail and with enough zing to go past the Faculty Council."

Nagy said he will canvass Faculty colleagues and "reflect further on it" before resubmitting the proposal to CUE in a half-year or year.