Can Untenured Faculty Members Stop Grade Inflation?

By Barbara Wendell

I had to laugh last month when administrators at Harvard University said that the emergence of an "A" or "A-" grading system reflects the increasing excellence of their students. Talk about spin.

I taught at Harvard as a teaching fellow and lecturer in the humanities for seven years, and the only time I felt safe giving a grade lower than an "A-" was when students didn't show up or turn in major assignments.

Yes, the gentleperson's "A-" arrived a long time ago. And, of course, everyone is "shocked."

Of course, for PR purposes, the big administrators will hold a few well-publicized meetings. But the people who can most easily explain grade inflation -- the underpaid and overworked teaching fellows and postdoc lecturers who do almost all of the grading -- will not be invited. Or, if any are invited, they will act "professionally" and say there is no problem (just more excellence) rather than risk speaking the "unprofessional" truth.

Here is what I would tell them if I could.

My motives as a teaching fellow were the following (in varying order): to cultivate a relationship with the supervising professor, to learn more about the subject, to gain résumé-building experience, to improve my teaching skills, and to make enough money to survive.

After one or two semesters, I found that all of these motives could be satisfied by teaching fellowships if I remembered my primary duty was to the insulate the supervising professor from undergraduates. If one of my students went to see the professor about something that occurred in my section -- to contest a grade, say -- then I would be sure to hear about it from the professor, and it would not be a pleasant encounter. I learned quickly that more than a few student complaints almost always meant the loss of future teaching fellowships with that professor.

I have been told by professors -- following regular administrative injunctions to curtail grade inflation -- that the average grade in a section should be a "B+". If I had followed this suggestion, I suspect that student complaints would have prevented me from ever teaching for that faculty member again. No one is fired, mind you. Teaching fellows are just not "rehired." No one ever says why.

In addition to the pressure from supervising professors to raise grades, teaching fellows face considerable pressure from students. For an "at-risk" faculty member (anyone without tenure, really), it is worrisome to give any grade lower than an "A-", unless one can prove, beyond any possible challenge, that the grade is deserved. In subjective fields like the humanities, this is hard to do with legal certainty.

Even an "A-" is no guarantee against student complaints -- all the way to the college president and into the legal system. And who can blame the students? Grade inflation has long since reached a level in which 4.0 is a normal GPA for applicants to the most competitive graduate programs or entry-level corporate jobs. With an undergraduate education costing more than $140,000, who can tolerate receiving a "B" from some adjunct or grad student who makes less than a janitor?

What untenured faculty member is so secure that his or her grades cannot be challenged successfully? Consider the judicial boards that many colleges run in which even tenured professors are forced to defend themselves against anonymous and unsubstantiated charges by students who are not subject to cross-examination? At current levels of academic competition, any accusation can jeopardize one's career. Why take such a risk? It's not as if there is some code of academic integrity being upheld by anyone in a real position of power. (It's a rare graduate student who receives anything lower than an "A-" in a seminar.) Why should graduate students hold undergraduates to a standard higher than they have experienced? What should a relatively powerless faculty member do when even the most powerful seem so risk-averse?

The students know about the pressures faced by "at-risk" faculty, and they have entered into a silent agreement: "Make this course an 'easy A,' and we will give you a good evaluation." If not, we'll go to your superiors and complain about some species of unfairness -- and the superior will get angry about having to spend time dealing with undergraduates -- whether the complaints are justified or not.

This silent agreement is not just for "at-risk" faculty members at big universities. A similar predicament is faced by untenured faculty members at all kinds of colleges who have to compete with each other to get high enrollments and positive teaching evaluations. They also have to protect their time in order to maximize their publications, and it is easier to give higher grades because they require less written justification and less follow-up advising. For any overworked faculty member -- and the workloads have been increasing in step with grade inflation -- the temptation to zoom through a batch of papers by giving lots of high grades is almost irresistible when there are no immediate consequences.

When grades are inflated everybody seems to win in the short term: There are fewer dropouts; administrators and supervising faculty members have to deal with fewer complaints; "at-risk" faculty members have less work and higher scores on their teaching evaluations; and students get the highest possible grades for decreasing amounts of effort.

Of course, the bottom has to fall out eventually. What happens when the meritocracy of grading is replaced by a system in which teachers make distinctions based on exhaustion and fear for their jobs? What happens when employers learn that degrees, even with high grade-point averages, are not a good indication of ability? What happens when students realize, years later, they have been cheated out of an education?

Back at Harvard, I fear that administrators and tenured professors will probably pass the buck, as usual. They will expect untenured teaching fellows and lecturers to assume almost unilateral responsibility for grade inflation. After all the meetings, the tenured professors will tell their assistants to grade more strictly. Some inexperienced idealists may actually follow these suggestions. They will suffer the inevitable consequences of student complaints, lower evaluation scores, and fewer publications.

Of course, it's not Harvard's fault. No single institution can do anything about grade inflation. It is just another indicator of a much larger systemic breakdown, like the two-tiered employment structure to which it is related. Paying student-customers are scarce, but teaching faculty members are a dime a dozen. At present the students have the power, and they are, in essence, buying not only their degrees but their high GPA's.

"At-risk" faculty members cannot safely evaluate students when they have no protection from complaints and no recourse against "not being rehired" for doing what is supposed to be their job.

The present system re-educates or disposes of anyone who might be overly inclined to maintain high standards. And grades will continue to inflate until everyone graduates summa cum laude.

The PR office can call it "The Summit of Excellence."