University Times

In an interview this week, Provost James Maher talked about Pitt grading policies and practices.

"I don't think there would be anything to be gained from my office accusing certain professors or academic units of inflating grades," Pitt's chief academic officer said. "My approach is to press faculty, generally, to keep looking at their grading, to make sure it's fair and consistent and appropriate for their disciplines."

But the provost did not rule out a University-wide study of grade inflation, if faculty believe strongly that such a study is needed.

He noted that Pitt has no official, percentage-based grading scale (such as 97-100 percent equals an A-plus, 80-82 percent equals a B-minus, etc.), and that grading standards can vary by discipline.

— Bruce Steele

University Times: Is grade inflation a problem, or issue of concern, at Pitt generally? In certain units? Or, is it not a problem at all here?

Maher: I think it's an important issue for us to think about, as we try to make sure we're doing the very best we can by our students. The grading system has at least two purposes. One is to give the student an indication of how his or her performance compares to the professor's expectations, and the other is to give the student a credential in the world. In each case, it's important that the evaluation be fair and clear. So, we should think about whether we're doing those things right.

I'm not aware of anything at the moment that is badly out of line, either with national norms or with the two goals of informing the student and informing the world about the student's performance.

So, you don't think Pitt should undertake a comprehensive study of its grading policies and practices, similar to the study Harvard recently did.

I don't think it's urgent. If each of our schools looks over its own grading system and asks the two questions of whether the system is succeeding in informing the students of their own progress and giving the students the credential they will need to move on after they have graduated, I think that will be all we need to do. And that is, of course, part of the annual planning that each of the schools does.

But if there is faculty concern with this — and I could imagine, given the fact that the grading system at the undergraduate level is demonstrably different from what it was 20 or 30 years ago — then I would welcome a careful look at exactly what we are doing, across the University.

What steps does Pitt take to discourage grade inflation?

Every year, as part of the annual planning, each school has to review each of its programs. The questions that must be addressed have to do with the appropriate education of the students, as measured in a number of ways, but basically looking at the success of the students in meeting the academic goals of the program they're enrolled in. The grading system is intrinsic to that.

Given the improvements in academic quality of freshman classes here in recent years, has Pitt — or will Pitt — "ratchet up" its grading standards for undergraduates? Will it become harder for students to earn high grades here?

I would put a little bit different emphasis in that question. I think it's important that every student in the University be challenged intellectually by the courses that he or she takes. Any professor who finds that the students in the room are capable of doing more than the students who'd been in the room several years earlier is going to want to stimulate and challenge those students to do their very best.

It's hard to predict, discipline by discipline or profession by profession, how that's going to work its way into the grading system. But the important thing is that students feel challenged and that they grow intellectually and personally. I would be inclined to let the grading follow in whatever way seems most appropriate, as long as the faculties of the schools are being sufficiently reflective about the way they are delivering their programs, grading included.

During your career, have you witnessed grade inflation? Do A, B, C, D and F grades today carry the same value they did when you began teaching — or, for that matter, when you were an undergraduate?

Since my department, physics, does have guidelines for how grades should be distributed over a large class, I don't think there has been very much grade inflation. I know that FAS [Faculty of Arts and Sciences] used to publish grade distributions within the different FAS divisions, showing changes over time, and that grades in some parts of the arts and sciences became, during the 1980s, significantly higher than they had been in the 1960s.

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed piece, two College of New Jersey professors contended that U.S. colleges and universities give students passing grades for merely "going through the motions of learning." They also noted what they called the metamorphosis of F from an academic grade for "failing to do acceptable college-level work" into a disciplinary category for "failing to come to class" or "failing to submit assignments." Do either of those statements apply to Pitt?

Those statements are not, in my experience, a fair indictment of the grading system here. I'm not aware of anyone at Pitt who would pass a student merely for coming to class, and I also am quite confident that most of our faculty are setting a reasonably high standard for acceptable performance in their classes.

But if a student comes to every class and turns in all of the assignments, even if [those completed assignments] are of high school quality, wouldn't that student get a D rather than an F these days, at Pitt or most other universities?

I certainly gave F's. I think each professor has an understanding of what is the minimum performance that should carry academic credit. And that's really the test I always used in deciding the difference between a D and an F. I think that's true of most professors.

Now, there are differences in the perceived difficulty of courses. Some courses may be sufficiently easy to pass that the professor might do well to think about whether the minimum standard for awarding academic credit should be changed. But in general, I think most professors have thought it through rather carefully, where the D/F line ought to be drawn. The distribution of A's, B's and C's is more the area where there has been demonstrable grade inflation in some areas of the University.

How do grading standards differ for undergraduate and graduate students?

At most schools, and certainly here at Pitt, the grading system in terms of letter grades is very different for graduate students than for undergraduates.

In the arts and sciences here, an A-minus is the lowest grade that says a student's performance is what one would expect of someone who should eventually get a Ph.D. When a professor gives any kind of a B to a graduate student, the professor knows that that student is going to need to offset that grade with some A's in order to get the QPA up high enough to get a Ph.D. eventually. Similarly, a B-minus is too low of a grade to get a master's.

To a graduate student, a B is what a C is to an undergraduate student. Because, to graduate with a bachelor's degree it's necessary to carry a 2.0 QPA, which is a C. Whereas, a 3.0 QPA is required for a graduate degree.