Spring Break
Letter to the Editor: in response to the article "college will offer academic amnesty," printed April 27
Issue date: 5/11/09 Section: Voices
To the editor:
Prior to the Vietnam War, the grading scale was A,B,C,D,E (or F). The scale stayed in place in the 60's and 70's (in a numerical format 4, 3, 2, 1, 0). Lower grades were not often given to avoid a student losing his academic standing and becoming draft eligible in an unpopular war.
In the following decades Pass/Fail became a popular grading alternative since it took away the uncomfortable edge of competing with your follow students. It offered a way for a student to take a non-major course "for fun" which had merit. If you showed up for a majority of the classes you passed . . . period. In fact I have never known of a student receiving a Fail in a Pass/Fail course.
Now academia is offering course-grade forgiveness or academic amnesty. It's a way for a student to feel good about his or her GPA. I am more concerned about our students feeling good about themselves. Accepting the consequences for your academic performance and realizing why it happened is the best way to instill pride in yourself and improvement your chances for future success.
One of the missions of WCC should be to prepare (in the most humane way possible) students for the real world. In the private sector there is success and failure. The best performing employees are promoted over their colleagues and actually receive higher salaries. People hold themselves accountable for their own actions, even though those actions may have been impaired by conditions beyond their control.
Good people (GM's Rick Waggoner) fail and get fired. Likely some of the academics who are establishing WCC's grade amnesty program has never experienced the middle finger that guides the "invisible hand" that runs our free market system. If it had, it would be more concerned about preparing students in the best possible way for a capitalistic system that, for better or worse, grades people and products rigorously.
~Del Dunbar
Ann Arbor
Prior to the Vietnam War, the grading scale was A,B,C,D,E (or F). The scale stayed in place in the 60's and 70's (in a numerical format 4, 3, 2, 1, 0). Lower grades were not often given to avoid a student losing his academic standing and becoming draft eligible in an unpopular war.
In the following decades Pass/Fail became a popular grading alternative since it took away the uncomfortable edge of competing with your follow students. It offered a way for a student to take a non-major course "for fun" which had merit. If you showed up for a majority of the classes you passed . . . period. In fact I have never known of a student receiving a Fail in a Pass/Fail course.
Now academia is offering course-grade forgiveness or academic amnesty. It's a way for a student to feel good about his or her GPA. I am more concerned about our students feeling good about themselves. Accepting the consequences for your academic performance and realizing why it happened is the best way to instill pride in yourself and improvement your chances for future success.
One of the missions of WCC should be to prepare (in the most humane way possible) students for the real world. In the private sector there is success and failure. The best performing employees are promoted over their colleagues and actually receive higher salaries. People hold themselves accountable for their own actions, even though those actions may have been impaired by conditions beyond their control.
Good people (GM's Rick Waggoner) fail and get fired. Likely some of the academics who are establishing WCC's grade amnesty program has never experienced the middle finger that guides the "invisible hand" that runs our free market system. If it had, it would be more concerned about preparing students in the best possible way for a capitalistic system that, for better or worse, grades people and products rigorously.
~Del Dunbar
Ann Arbor
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