20 thoughts on “Paper Classes”

  1. I took a grad class in Afro-American Studies there in 1992. So glad it was before this. Didn’t know anyone involved, but I know one of the profs there decamped for Duke in 93.

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    1. I had to skim, but what is fascinating me in this link and the links within the post is that the main people doing this seem to have been women.

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      1. I get the impression that the paper classes were motivated by sympathy, at least at first (and, by a secretary). People often cite the Vietnam war as the reason for grade inflation (I don’t know if that’s a real connection — there was so much else going on at the same time). I can easily imagine how a paper might sound better if the evaluation is going to be the difference between life and potentially death (especially with a student who is known and liked).

        The report suggests that similar concerns started the process.

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      2. Actual thing I once said to an advisor (as a professor): “You mean, if I fail him, he will be sent back to his war-torn country?”

        (Note: I did fail him–it was actually a cheating thing. No idea what happened after that. I will also say that the advisor was very supportive of my failing the student.)

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      3. Yes, and making that decision, against cheating in a class, when “you don’t know what happened after that” is easier. It’s a bit harder, for many, when they know what happens next. If I knew, for certain, what happened next, say, the 19 year old is co-opted to fight for Boko Haram it becomes a bit harder to assign that F (even if it is the right thing to do).

        I think there have to be structures in place to keep that kind of compassion from running amuck, and I do think football players, working 60+ hours a week, are deserving of compassion. My first solution would be to give them 8 years of scholarships, so that they can finish up all their real work after they finish playing, if they want (well, really, my first solution is that we shouldn’t have college football, but barring that). And, those remaining years should remain valid for their whole life (and not have any monetary value, i.e. can’t cash out, unless they can prove they are disabled, in which case, they get even more money than tuition).

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      7. I think it would be harder to take me seriously, if I were qpootle5, instead of bj, too, almost as much as if I had been a member of a sorority :-).

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      9. bj said:

        “My first solution would be to give them 8 years of scholarships, so that they can finish up all their real work after they finish playing, if they want (well, really, my first solution is that we shouldn’t have college football, but barring that).”

        That’s a very reasonable suggestion.

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  5. Confession time: this week I interviewed a college senior for an entry-level role on my team. She revealed during the interview that she’s a Tri Delt. I was taken aback by that – in my experience people who devoted a lot of energy to the greek system in college were not serious students. I’ve bowed out of the decision-making process around this candidate because I worry about my own bias. This article certainly reinforces my unfortunate stereotype.

    Curious – would anyone else here have had the same reaction?

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    1. I think it depends on the campus and the culture of Greek life there. I have several friends from undergrad who were in sororities and fraternities. One (male) is now a veterinarian. Two (female) I knew from the newspaper. All of them were serious students, not really into the hard drinking part of Greek life.

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    2. Not enough to bow out of decision making. It seems a pretty broad brush, to think that students who belong to any fraternity/sorority. Or, do you know enough about Tri Delt that you are only biased against that particular sorority? I will admit a developing bias against them ’cause I just went to the website, and it started playing music at me, which I couldn’t figure out how to turn off :-).

      I know women who belong to and belonged to sororities and they are not unserious students, and they are all highly capable adults, and have strength in skills that I lack (that might be attributable to their sorority membership, like the ability to organize groups of people, especially without significant authority over them). There are clearly plenty of serious students in sororities — though maybe the culture in particular schools and sororities might mean that particular chapter membership might be indicative of less academic inclinations.

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    3. It depends on the school. A full 50% of the student body at my land-grant university was greek. Students who were greek could be just as serious or just as worthless an a non-greek student.

      Personally, I was a proud GDI, but I had many friends in the system.

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  6. I agree with Brian Rosenberg: http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/10/24/unc-chapel-hill-should-lose-accreditation/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en.

    “The response, regardless of the visibility or reputation or wealth of the institution, should be to suspend accredited status until there is evidence that an appropriate level of integrity is both culturally and structurally in place.

    Anything less would be dismissive of the many institutions whose transcripts actually have meaning.”

    The fraternities and sororities exploited a weakness in the university, to whit, effectively free grades.

    One could make a satire out of it, because the fraternities and sororities were kind of conning the con men.

    I don’t believe that other people in positions of power at the university didn’t know what was going on–or wouldn’t have been able to predict that there had to be some sort of mechanism to keep favored admits in school. That they tolerated this means they should all lose their jobs.

    Not holding my breath, here.

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