Word: gradinger
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I object to your insouciant criticism of William B. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield's views on grading ("Harvey 'C-Plus' Mansfield?", Feb. 9). While you may think yourselves entitled to cast Professor Mansfield as woefully atavistic in his belief that it is a professor's job...
The Crimson is interested, is it not, in fine education? Just last week the Editorial Board treated us to a host of editorials on how the deans might better serve the cause of liberal arts education at Harvard--including one presumptuously entitled "The Closing of the Harvard Mind," after the...
Unfortunately, in most Core classes no one--neither the professor, the teaching fellows or the students--have much interest in the class. The atmosphere in many Core offerings is not one of intellectual endeavor but rather one reminiscent of drivers' education classes. As a result, grading standards in Core classes...
Of course, because of this grade inflation in Core classes, the phenomenon must spread to the other classes in the catalog as well. This diffusion of grade inflation is because most professors are loathe to effectively punish students for taking their classes by using tougher grading standards.
The solution, therefore, is to both do away with the Core program in favor of a distribution requirement and to de-emphasize larger departmental classes in favor of smaller offerings. Larger classes simply tend to be more arbitrary in their grading than the smaller classes at Harvard. In fact, there...