Media Musings: Will lottery taint college grades?
As the Tennessee lottery prepares for early launch, they’re uncertainties in post-secondary education. One hasn’t received any media attention, and because it’s an insider story, that’s understandable. But it may have serious implications for academic freedom and the ancient methodology followed by community colleges and universities to grade students’ performance.
This is hardly the first time the process of student evaluations has been examined. Today, universities have an entire process of grade appeals, which is activated by any student who feels he or she has been unfairly evaluated. At MTSU, a faculty committee, drawn from across its five colleges, hears the complaint, requests evaluation procedure applied by the involved professor, and renders a final decision. And forget that old “wink and nudge” that the review is only cursory. Grades have been changed after committee review, but such a decision is not common.
What brings this matter to the forefront are the requirements a student must meet to keep the Tennessee HOPE Scholarship. Any student who has been awarded the $3,000 annual award must earn a 2.75 GPA the freshman year and a 3 (B) average the second, third, fourth and fifth years. The student must earn 24 credit hours every year. Once a student loses the scholarship because of low grades, or for not completing the minimum number of hours per year, he or she loses the scholarship forever. That’s it.
These are reasonable standards. But now take them into application. A sophomore student in a class confronts the professor, begging for the grade earned to be changed from a D to a B, because if the D stands, then the scholarship will be lost, because all of the other class grades are Bs. Now the professor can either relent, moved by the sad story of the student and award the grade, which is a lie, or hold fast and bear the burden placed upon him or her by the student.
Let’s say the professor stands by the D and awards it as the final grade. The student is advised to appeal, using existing due process. The professor is upheld. Fine. But you know the next step: Courtroom testimony. Mom and dad hire a good lawyer and a lawsuit is filed against the professor, the university, and the Tennessee Board of Regents.
This isn’t outside the realm of plausibility. And it’s fraught with peril. Most especially in the arts and humanities, grades are professional opinions. Student papers are evaluated by men and women who’ve mastered an entire area of learning and against that assess where a student stands.
Another impact is even more troubling: grade inflation. Rather than engage the student and explain why the grade was a D, it’s possible the professor will just set a course low mark at a B. This corrupts what higher education means and diminishes the quality of the degrees offered by any university. This is happening at even elite universities.
One of my students asked what she could do to pass the course after three failing evaluations and I asked the one major question first: “Do you work, and, if so, how many hours?”
A: “Yes. 50.”
Q: “Why?”
A: “I have to keep up my car payment and my apartment.”
She failed the course. If the HOPE Scholarships can enable the students to work less, there’s no doubt their grades will improve. And it can go a long way in helping them reduce the large debt they carry upon graduation. Let us all hope the scholarships help students of all ages. Let us hope, as well, that the law of unexpected consequences doesn’t damage the freedom of a university at the same time.
(Ed Kimbrell is a professor in MTSU’s School of Journalism.)