Campus Watch

Like Harvard, Dartmouth College is considering major changes in student transcripts to combat perceived grade inflation.

According to an article in The Dartmouth, that school's committee on instruction in considering a new transcript that would include the average course grade and number of students enrolled for each course.

The committee mailed letters to faculty, administrators and the Dartmouth Student Association explaining the proposal and asking for feedback.

The letter noted that the average grade at Dartmouth has risen from 3.06 in 1976-77 to 3.23 in 1992-93. Dartmouth uses the four-point garding scale favored by most American colleges.

The chair of the committee, Gary Johnson, said the proposed changes could "ease [the] difficulty of interpretation" and make it easier to "evaluate what a student has actually done."

The new transcript is also meant to even out grading discrepancies within the departments, the committee's letter says.

Harvard has been considering similar changes for a while, according to Dean for undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell.

The idea was discussed in the Educational Policy Committee, and "the next stop is the committee on Undergraduate Education," Buell said.

Buell said the proposal will have to be approved by the faculty. The dean added that the faculty is not likely to vote on the matter this semester.

Buell said several Canadian universities which list class size and average grade on their transcripts had served as models for Harvard's committee.

Buell called the fact that Dartmouth and Harvard are considering nearly identical changes at the same time "serendipity."

"There's something in the air," he added,

President Clinton's decision to implement a don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military has again raised the issue of ROTC on campus.

Harvard has been accused of backtracking on ROTC. The University issued a two year ultimatum in 1990 saying Harvard would cut all ties to ROTC if discrimination against gays in the military was not addressed by the Department of Defense. But the University has never acted on that ultimatum.

Harvard students continue to participate in ROTC by enrolling in programs offered through MIT.

And "don't ask, don't tell" has also brought the issue up again at other Ivy League universities.

At Dartmouth, for example, the board of trustees issued an ultimatum similar to Harvard's, Later, the board extended the deadline to this April in order to consider Clinton's new policy.

At a recent Dartmouth faculty meeting, professors passed a resolution urging the board of trustees to discontinue ROTC, according to The Dartmouth.

Several faculty argued that the new Defense policy is still inconsistent with Dartmouth's antidiscrimination policy. They said the college is compromising its ethics by being involved in ROTC.

But students disagree. Last term, the Dartmouth student assembly voted unanimously in favor of keeping the college's links to ROTC. One faculty member has cited this as evidence that students see Dartmouth's anti-discrimination policy as a guideline, not a principle.

The issue does not appear to be as prominent at other schools.

At Brown, the ROTC program is "not completely phased out," according to a university spokesperson.

Brown offers students the opportunity to participate in ROTC through a program run by Providence College.

An assistant to Allen Braun, who advises Yale students enrolled in ROTC, said that the program is "not in danger of being phased out."

And at least one school has no ties whatsoever to ROTC.

Columbia University has been without a ROTC program since 1969, according to Robert J. Nelson, a spokesperson for the Office of Public Information.