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Show THE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL • SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVER lTY • MONDAY. APRIL 12, 1999 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~IHIJECCA™DPID§ 0 ~ Faculty admits that grade inflation exists By BILL JUSTESEN ' ENIOR STAFF WRJTER Admini trator and faculty member generalJy agree that grade inflation exi t at SUU. Grade inflation occur when grade increase but student achievement doe not. "It is not atypical. All unjversitie have the same problems, " said Provo t Ray Reutzel. "The average grade given at BYU i an A-.~ Treion Muller, U A President, agreed with the concept of grade inflation. "Schools in South Africa grade harder than schools in North America, " he said. But Mark Barton, as i cant vice president, held a different opinion of increased grades: the quality of the student has continued to increase. "We are attracting more of the toppercentage of student with a GPA of higher than 3.85. I don 't know that a light increa e would show grade inflation, n he said. Concern over grade was an issue in la t month 's student body elections. Damian Liebhardt, a senior zoology major from Cedar City, included in his platform an appeal to.reduce the 3.9 GPA requirement for full-tuition scholarships (the Four-year honors cholarship and the leadership ·cholarship). "The general feeling of people that I have spoken with i that it is much harder to maintain that 3.9 tandard .e. in the · ay Neztt.ze/ colleges of science and business than it is in any other of the college ; for example, 80 percent of students in the College of Education receive As in mo t of their academic clas es, where thi i only applicable to only around 40 percent of tudents in the College of cience, " Liebhardt wrote. But Barton explained chat scholarship were equally di trihuced among the different college . Dean Bruce Barker of the College of Education aid that the college grades on a criterion reference grading scale, wherea other colleges may grade on a bell curve, thu making it difficult to draw compari on between the variou college . He aid that people come to the program in the last two year of their education, and that those upperdivi ion rudent u ually earn higher grade . "We et the criterion and we teach to that criterion for succes . When students meet che standards that we et, they get the grade they deserve ," he said. "We like to believe that some of the best and brightest students are enrolled in the College of Education and we expect them to perform well in their' cour e work." Lecturer LaVona L. Adams of the busines department said he felt that grade inflation was " omewhat of a problem" but that within the business education department, uch inflation is reduced by the amount of time the faculty spends in their grading. "We don 't grade haphazardly; we try to be fair, " she said. Looking back at her own education at UU, Adams said, "there were some courses where attendance and meeting the basic requirement of the course got a student an A. There are classes where attendance .is all a professor can grade on." Another problem Reutzel cited was the fact that students expect to receive an A for simply completing the assigned work. "But is it quality work, " he questioned. With that in mind, he aid, "teachers have to decide what distinguishe one grade from another." Suzanne Larson, a professor of the College of Bu iness, Technology and Communication, aid she al o believed that grade inflation exists at the university hut that she is "not concerned" about it. he Ii ted three explanations of the increased grades. The first rea on wa imilar to Barton' , "We put a matrix cogether for incoming student . We are admitting student with higher GPA . " Her second argument was that many tudents are "children of yuppies. " Lar on said that student are the " Y" generation and that each brings a different experience to the university based upon their upbringing; each tudent is more knowledgeable when they come to college a a result of that upbringing. The final issue related to contracts that many faculty have adopted to motivate the students. "It seems fair to me and a bit more objective," she said. The contracts according to her generally state, "You meet these standards, you get an A." Larson currently docs not use contracts. SUU has cautioned the faculty to ensure that grades are·consi tent and fair, said Reutzel, but SUU does not have new policy created to take care of the problem. "It is one of those topic that works you to death and you walk away from it, n he said. Natitfe American beauty fills week Miss Indian SUV (top photo) Cy nthia Singer (left) , first attendant Valerie Fowler and second attendant Katrina Stevens (not pictured) were crowned Monday night during the annual Miss Indian SUV pageant. Holly Begay e, 14,from Orem, Utah (bottom), perfonns in the Teen Girl Fancy hawl Dance in Saturday's 22nd annual UV powwow held in the Sharwan Smith Center's _B allroom. |