Notebook - November 17, 1999
Should Princeton abolish the A-plus?
Faculty committee proposes changes to halt further grade inflation
Afaculty committee has recommended abolishing the A-plus. In its third
report on grading patterns at Princeton, the Faculty Committee on Examinations
and Standing also included new data showing that grade inflation slowed
last year after increasing for 25 years, and suggested plans for halting
the upward drift.
The data showed that grades earned for undergraduate course work are
typically concentrated within the A-plus to B-minus range. The committee
urged faculty members to try to curb grade inflation (a general increase
over time in the average grade) and to broaden the range of grades awarded.
The upward trend in average grades stopped in 1998-99, but the report
released in September cautions that "the decline in mean grades is
modest at best," not statistically significant, and not uniform among
departments. "There is much more work to be done," said Dean of
the College Nancy Weiss Malkiel, who chairs the committee.
New data revealed that grades for independent work are higher than those
for courses, particularly in the natural sciences and engineering. In 1998-99,
65.0 percent of all grades earned for junior independent work and 65.7 percent
of those earned for senior theses fell in the A range. Faculty should ask
themselves if "the grades are really reflective of the work being done"
and should better distinguish good work from outstanding achievement, said
Malkiel, who chairs the committee.
"Blind grading" could produce "more realistic appraisals"
of junior papers and senior theses, said Ben S. Bernanke, Howard Harrison
and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and
chairman of the economics department. Students merit more Cs on independent
projects than are given out by faculty members, he added.
The committee recommended that the A-plus, and its 4.3 numerical value,
be replaced with an A with Distinction (A*) and a 4.0 value. Departments
award A-pluses inconsistently: Students in the natural sciences and engineering
are more likely to earn them than students in other disciplines. Many academic
honors and prizes are based on grade point averages.
Doing away with the A-plus, however, will further bunch grades, said
Peter R. Jaffe, chairman of the civil and environmental engineering department.
After listening to faculty and student feedback, the committee might
revise its report before taking any proposals to the faculty for a vote
sometime this winter.
-Kathryn Federici Greenwood
Students need fatter wallets to
buy textbooks for courses
Each semester the average Princeton student spends between $250 and
$500 on books. The required reading for the hard sciences and math costs
the most, said Robert Daniels, the senior buyer for the University Store's
book department. The textbook for Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering 321,
Mechanical Engineering Design, has a $106.40 price tag. Chemical Principles
for Chemistry 201 costs $99.10 at the University Store. And the prices keep
going up. The National Association of College Stores reported that textbook
prices have increased on average 5 to 6 percent per year over the last 10
years.
Students are at the mercy of publishers, who jack up costs if demand
is high for a particular text, said Daniels. Some publishers package textbooks
with items such as study guides, custom notes designed by professors, and
CD-ROMs with interactive study aids, pushing up costs to students. About
75 percent of the money from the sale of a textbook goes to the publisher,
said Daniels. The rest goes to the author, printing and shipping costs,
and the college store.
In the last couple of years, Princeton students have had more options
for buying their books. They can still stroll down to the University Store
or wander over to Micawber Books on Nassau Street, but they can also log
on to any of a number of online Internet companies, including efollet.com
and varsitybooks.com, which in some cases beat University Store prices.
To compete with the online companies and local stores, the University Store
has discounted many of its textbooks, charging 5 to 20 percent less than
it did last year.
-Kathryn Federici Greenwood
University ranks fourth in the
nation for black graduation rate
Princeton has the fourth highest graduation rate for African-American
students in the nation and the second highest in the Ivy League, said a
study that will appear in the fall edition of The Journal of Blacks in Higher
Education. In 1998, 90 percent of black students at Princeton graduated
within six years. Harvard ranked first in the study, with a rate of 94 percent.
Haverford College placed second with 93. Vassar College ranked third with
91.
The study looked at the top 50 institutions ranked by US News & World
Report in its annual "Best Colleges" issue, said Robert Bruce
Slater, managing editor of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The
journal calculated graduation rates by comparing the number of entering
freshmen in a given year with those students who received diplomas within
six years.
The study also considered the difference in the rates between black and
white students. Princeton has the eighth lowest spread between the races.
In 1998, 96 percent of whites completed their undergraduate degrees. The
University of Pennsylvania is among the schools with the largest gaps, with
a 21percent difference.
Princeton topped the Ivies and ranked fifth nationally for improving
its black graduation rate over a five-year period. In 1993, 86 percent of
blacks completed their educations.
Although blacks are doing well at the country's most selective colleges
and universities, said the study, they are floundering on the whole. Their
nationwide graduation rate was 39 percent, 20 percent below the rate for
white students.
African-American undergraduates stay in school and graduate from Princeton,
said Slater, because of "ample financial aid," the high caliber
of students, and programs that welcome minorities to campus.
The university is doing a good job in many respects, but it still has
challenges to face, said Dean of the College Nancy Weiss Malkiel, who has
spearheaded
programs to attract and retain minority students.
The numbers don't look as good for African-Americans when you examine
those for students who in 1999 graduated in four years or less. Figures
from the Registrar's office indicate a 12 percent gap between the four-year
graduation rate of blacks, 80.0 percent, and whites, 92.1 percent. The total
graduation rate is 90.9 percent.
-Kathryn Federici Greenwood
1998 Graduation rates
black white difference
Harvard 94% 97% 3%
Princeton 90% 96% 6%
Brown 89% 93% 4%
Yale 86% 96% 10%
Dartmouth 85% 96% 11%
Cornell 77% 91% 14%
Columbia 72% 86% 14%
Pennsylvania 69% 90% 21%
Source: The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education |
Menagerie mural for "Zoo"
inhabitants
Last spring when Jon Harris '02 and his friends drew 121 Dodge Osborn
Hall, the 10-man dorm suite known as the Zoo, he decided that its two-story
wall in the living room cried out for creatures. With no preliminary sketch
to work from, Harris painted a 16' by 12' mural before classes started this
fall.
The artwork, applied in acrylic latex house paint to six 8' by 4' panels,
depicts strange-looking animals hanging out in trees, flying in the sky,
swimming in water, and burrowing in underground tunnels. Each of the Zoo's
10 residents is represented by an animal in the painting, Harris by a laughing
hyena holding a palette. The other creatures include a beaver parachuting,
a whale spewing sperm, and a killer bunny eating an elephant.
Harris tried to create "something so big it had to be noticed,"
something that would cause students to step back if only for a moment and
see everyday life at Princeton afresh.
-Kathryn Federici Greenwood
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