History Professor William Abbott has a mission. It is to recognize and combat the crisis of grade inflation that he believes exists at Fairfield University.
“The problem [of grade inflation] was first made clear to me when SAT scores plummeted, and yet grades weren’t dropping,” Abbott explained. “People were getting the same and better grades for lower quality work.”
He has spent numerous hours developing his own plan to fight the problem of grade inflation at Fairfield with a proposal that would have added the number of students in the class and the class average next to the student’s grade in every student’s transcript .
Abbott’s proposal to expose grade inflation, however, was voted down by the Academic Council 10-2.
Despite the rejection of his proposal, Abbott was still ardent about grade inflation, the defeat not doing much to dampen his morale on the matter.
Nationwide there have been efforts to recognize the grade inflation that is present in the higher education systems. Columbia University and Dartmouth College already instituted the same policy that Abbott proposed, but with little to no change in grade inflation.
“If people would use all grades there would be a much broader analysis of ability. But we can’t go past As and we’re compressed on the other end,” said Abbott.
Abbott added a number of graphs released by the registrar as appendices to his proposal showed that the average grade given to all fields from 1998 to 2002 in the College of Arts and Sciences, Business School and the School of Nursing barely dropped below 80 and would often reach the mid to high 90s.
Even though the average SAT score of Fairfield freshmen has risen from 1107 for the class of 2000 to 1194 for the class of 2006, this is only after the SATs were further developed to accommodate declining standards of education inthe United States in 1996.
The problem goes much deeper than inflated grades, however, according to Abbott. He describes Fairfield students as “utterly passive and anti-intellectual,” and had hoped to change that culture if his proposal was passed.
Surveys show that in 2001 only 37 percent of students studied more than 10 hours a week, while the numbers for other catholic, private and Jesuit colleges were at least five points higher.
As for partying, 36 percent of Fairfield students spend more than 10 hours a week partying where at other catholic, private and Jesuit colleges the number is almost halved.
Abbott said his proposal would help students make more informed decisions about the classes they take.
“This proposal would free student to make decisions regardless of the grade they may receive and free them of the fear of taking hard courses,” Abbott said.
Some students felt the additional information would be helpful.
“It would more accurately grade the student’s performance in a class by providing information on how everyone else in the class performed,” said Janet Battey ’06.
Other students expressed a concern that the system could raise suspicion where it is not warranted.
“I am not for it,” said Chris Sullivan ’04. “In a small class size it is conceivable for all students to get a high grade, like in my master’s level course on advanced power electronics. We all have high 90s because we all learned the material and did well on the tests. It is not grade inflation, but it might get perceived as such if they start judging on averages.”
The proposal was met with skepticism by the academic council as well.
“There were a lot of arguments set forth in the academic council. One big one was that there was no evidence that Professor Abbott’s idea would have an effect on grade inflation,” said Timothy Snyder, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Richard DeWitt, executive secretary of the Academic Council, said the main issues that were raised against Abbott’s proposal involved the extra bureaucratic layer it would add to student’s transcripts, the question as to if there is a problem with grade inflation and the fact that Abbott’s proposal may not do anything.
Dr. Alan Katz, a politics professor was one of those who opposed the bill.
“The proposal created a lot of information and a lot of work that we weren’t sure would address the problem [of grade inflation], assuming there is one,” said Katz.
One student said she did not experience any apparent benefit.
“Although I’ve heard people talk about the existence of grade inflation,” said Elizabeth Collins ’05. “Unfortunately I’ve never been a direct beneficiary of grade inflation.”
Katz continued by explainied that implicit in Abbott’s argument is that the departments do not have standards. “There are lots of opportunities to improve their grades from smaller classes to options to rewrite to open door policies,” Katz said.
“If we produce higher grades and better papers at the same time, then what I am concerned with? So what? As long as the standards remain high,” said Katz.
Even though the proposal was not passed, Abbott remains hopeful that some change will occur in Fairfield’s policy to address the problem of inflation, but he is does not plan to pursue the issue.
“I’ve done the best I can. I feel as though I’ve hit my head against a wall,” he said. “I am heartened by statements made that even though the proposal was shot down the issue won’t be swept under the carpet. There are other proposals.”
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