Dear Ann Landers: The letter from "Depressed Old Prof in New Orleans" is absolutely correct. As a professor, I can attest to that. As colleges and universities admit underprepared students in order to collect their tuition, the pressure is on to give them passing grades.
Three years ago, I was called into the dean's office to discuss my performance. Among other things, I was told (and I quote), "I don't care what you have to do. More students must succeed in your classes."
The unstated but clear implication was to lower the standards in order to move those students along.
The next year, and even greater percentage of students "did not succeed," so I flunked them. I simply could not and would not pass students who had not mastered the material, regardless of the consequences. If I hadn't had tenure, I would surely have been fired.
I get no satisfaction out of having a high percentage of my students fail. In fact, it makes me sad when this happens.
But that's the way it is today in Tennessee and, I'm sure, in a good many other places. - Old Prof in Memphis
Dear Memphis: Cheers from here for keeping the standards high. It takes courage to swim against the tide and risk alienating the "business as usual" crowd. We need more "Old Profs" like you. Thanks for the breath of fresh air.
November 20, 1995
Most universities now force professors to hand out evaluation forms each semester. Obviously, the nice and easy professors gets the highest marks and are considered to the be the "best professors." Why? You do not call someone stupid by giving low grades (to students) and expect to receive favorable feedback from these same students on an anonymous questionnaire. Thus, if a professor has standards and tries to teach, the students will naturally retaliate by saying the professor is a bad teacher.
Now the administrator has a weapon to force the faculty members to give easy grades. The department head or dean tells the hard professors that they are bad teachers and forces the instructors to improve their teaching. How do most professors try to improve? You guessed it. They inflate their grades and reduce the material covered. This is a never ending cycle because this inflation causes the remaining professors to inflate their grades. By the year 2010, we will not give grades in higher education. We will simply pass everyone.
There is a myth in higher education that students are "customers", and they have a right to manage higher education. Students are not customers. Students are products or inventory. Employers, parents and society are the customers of higher education--not students. Students come into the university to be educated and trained. How can a freshman student know enough to evaluate a chemistry or business professor?
Yet each semester we give all students this "gun" called student evaluation of teachers. They select the easier professors, and administrators harass the "bad" professors (the professors with standards). Professors must demand due process in higher education. Faculty labor unions and faculty members must sue department heads and administrators for the right to educate students. We must blame the real villains for the destruction of higher education. Borrowing a phrase from the 1992 presidential campaign, "It's the control system, stupid."
SETs are the most widely abused internal controls in the U.S. beause at many universities the most dysfunctional employees are rewarded by this control.
- D. Larry Crumbley
Society for A Return to Academic Standards
Last Updated: 26 August 1997
