Suppose that when you receive your next set of grades, instead of getting an A- or a B+, you receive a A-/B+--a hybrid grade which corresponds to the number 13 on Harvard's 15-point grading scale.

Or suppose that in addition to the 32 odd grades that already appear on your transcript, Harvard includes the mean grade and the number of students enrolled in each of your classes.

Or what if Harvard abolishes its 15-point system altogether and replaces it with a linear scale like the 4.0 system used at many schools?

These are three proposals forwarded last week to the Faculty Council by the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) and contained within the committee's recent report on the subject.

The report, which will remain confidential until the Faculty Council considers the issue, comes after more than two and a half years of consideration of the idea of grade inflation at the College.

A Long Time Coming

The history of grade inflation on college campuses is a murky one.

The issue first caught the attention of academics and the national media in the late 70s, when a number of studies were released showing a rise in average college course grades across the country.

Studies performed by the Carnegie Council for the Advancement of Teaching found that 35 percent of all grades were B or above in 1969, a percentage which rose to 59 percent in 1976. The council also reported that average grades for college students rose each year from 1964 to 1974.

The issue re-emerged on the Harvard campus in 1993 when William D. Cole, then an instructor in Romance languages, wrote an article in the January 1993 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education claiming that grades on Ivy League cam- puses were on the rise.

The debate about grade inflation continued when Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53 linked inflated grades to the increased admission of black students in the 1960s in an article in Harvard Magazine.

"Grade inflation coincided with the arrival of large numbers of black students on the Harvard campus; many white professors were unwilling to give C's to black students, so they also wouldn't give C's to white students," Mansfield wrote.

Although Mansfield's statements were for the most part rejected by scholars and disproved by administrators who said grades rose on average before the increase in black admissions, the reawakening of the debate has led the Faculty to try to reform the College's grading system.

According to CUE Chair and Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell, it is finally time to put the controversy over grading to rest.

"We need to kick this issue upstairs," Buell told the committee at its meeting last week as he urged members to vote on the three proposals.

The Proposals