Inflation in the Academy (The Huffington Post)

Body

[[{“type”:“media”,“view_mode”:“media_large”,“fid”:null,“attributes”:{“class”:“media-image alignright size-full wp-image-46672”,“typeof”:“foaf:Image”,“style”:“”,“width”:“100”,“height”:“100”,“alt”:“The Huffington Post”}}]]In a recent post on The Huffington Post’s The Blog, Professor Dan Rockmore notes that the new normal grade at Harvard is an A. And that’s not just at Harvard, he says.

“Grades have been inflating for years at colleges nationwide. I can recall a mentor and colleague at my first faculty position 20 years ago at Columbia University recommending the use of the ‘elastic C-’ as antidote to my worries over the assignment of one of my set of final grades,” writes Rockmore, a professor of mathematics and of computer science and the William H. Neukom 1964 Distinguished Professor of Computational Science.

Grade inflation is a trend that colleges and universities should address for myriad reasons, including societal costs, writes Rockmore.

“A thoughtful return to the notion of a grade that is more earned than given, will ultimately serve all of us for the better,” he writes.

Read the full opinion piece, published 6/6/14 by The Huffington Post.

Office of Communications