Although his letter does not specifically suggest transcript reform, Feldman said he would not mind seeing a new transcript which lists the average grades in "different categories," such as introductory or upper-level courses in a certain concentration. But he has opposed efforts to list average grades for individual courses.
Action
Whatever the proposed solution, many students and faculty think it is time to do something.
"I think people are waiting with high expectations for the committee to act," Mansfield said.
He said that grade inflation is detrimental to good students, poor students and faculty members.
"It's bad for the best students who are judged in the same category as not-so-good students, and it's bad for the not-so-good students because they get a transcript that people increasingly dismiss," Mansfield said.
"It's also doing damage in the Faculty, where it reflects a loss of morale," Mansfield said. "If you are impressed with something, it's usually because it's difficult, but if everybody's getting A's, how difficult can it be? The faculty needs to pull itself together and recover its ability to discriminate."
Bradford E. Miller '97, a student member of the CUE, said communication is his top priority.
"I'd like first and foremost to see a discussion about this at a Faculty meeting," Miller said. "If we don't get all the Faculty's input on this, the proposal will go nowhere."
He cautioned, however, that the students he has talked to do not want to see their transcripts changed.
"Grade competition is a serious problem but can be dealt with now," Miller said. "It just shouldn't be allowed to get worse. Any kind of transcript reform proposed by the registrar would increase competition."
Another student member of the committee, Justin C. Label '97, said that he was torn.
"Personally, it seems to me that strong action should be taken against grade inflation," Label said. "It isn't good for the college. But I know a lot of students don't feel the same way."
Professor of Government Peter A. Hall, member of the Educational Policy Committee's subcommittee on transcript reform, said he would like grade inflation to slow down but is not sure how best to achieve that.
"I think we might take a step in the right direction by making some changes to the transcript, mainly by reporting the median grade on the transcript as well as the student's grade in that class," Hall said.
Transcript changes or not, Hall joined many others in his call for discussion and persuasion.
"In any case, I think there's a need for moral suasion from department chairs and deans and from those concerned about the collective good," Hall said. "In the post this has not been very effective, I think because most faculty members want to be fair to their students, quite rightly, and they define fairness as grading on roughly the same scale everyone else does.