(U-WIRE) WACO, Texas - Many major colleges and universities are feeling the effects of the latest academic trend: grade inflation. According to some professors, Baylor has not escaped this trend.
A Feb. 18 front-page article in The New York Times reported that grade inflation is on the rise at such prestigious schools as Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania.
The article stated that "A's and B's still account for about 80 percent of the grades at Stanford," while at Princeton "83 percent of the grades given between 1992 and 1997 fell between A+ and B-, compared with 69 percent between 1973 and 1977."
Baylor's Office of Institutional Research and Testing said information concerning grades and grade point averages was not available.
Some professors, however, feel that grade inflation is definitely present at the university.
"When you look at the grades and see that two-thirds of them are A's and B's, then I think that really indicates grade inflation," Dr. Howard Rolf, professor of mathematics, said. "I think an A doesn't have the same value as it used to."
Dr. Rena Bonem, professor of geology, said that grades have inflated across the U.S. and Baylor.
"We see this especially now that people are applying for graduate programs here," she said. "It's hard to see if they've really learned and accomplished all that their grades reflect, and vice versa."
Rolf said the trend can be attributed to several different factors. One factor he sees is the changing culture.
"Our society used to be an agricultural one, with people doing work and chores everyday," Rolf said. "There is really not much of a work ethic."
Rolf also said that professors may not be demanding as much from students as they should be.
The value of grades is also debatable, Rolf said.
"A grade is a crude estimate of what a person knows," he said.
Student evaluations of professors can also play a role in grading, some professors said.
"Non-tenured instructors do feel the pressure to try to make students like them better," Bonem said. "However, now I think that the most constructive thing that could be done would be to change the format of the evaluations."
While professors might see this trend at Baylor, some students believe that it is not evident here.
"I have never really noticed it," Kerri Flanagin, an Austin junior, said. "I don't see it as grade inflation -I just think that expectations are raised and people step up to the challenge."
Some professors still believe that some things should be changed at the university to combat this trend.
"I think there needs to be uniformity between departments," Dr. Timothy Johnson, assistant professor of classics, said. "The grades need to be deflated simultaneously."
Rolf said that grade point average is not the only factor important in job and graduate school selections.
"It may suggest the better employee," he said. "However, the gpa doesn't tell the whole story."