<p>Letter to the Editor: Professors and Students. Thou Shalt Read This Letter.</p>
<p>To The Editor:</p>
<p>Re: "Professors: Thou Shalt Read This Column," Opinion, Nov. 10
and "Students, Thou Shalt Read This Letter, "Opinion, Dec. 1</p>
<p>Professor Pitts and Sam Dean importantly address promoting a positive relationship between students and faculty. Unfortunately however, they miss the mark by failing to assess the source of the tension between the two.</p>
<p>Recent articles in the Sun have focused on the efforts at protecting students from gorge related incidents, as well as a recent legal suit filed against the University.</p>
<p>What is remarkably absent from the dialogue about the interaction between students and faculty is why this University has a significant issue with student dissatisfaction, often resulting in significant consequences. Not one of our peer institutions faces a student dissatisfaction problem even remotely close to what is presented on our Ithaca campus. Not one of our peer schools has an administration as preoccupied as ours with protecting students against themselves with barriers or similar efforts. Not because our peers do not care about their students. Quite the contrary, they care enough about their students to avoid a problem such as the one we have. Plain and simple, student dissatisfaction at Cornell largely lies in the consequences of difficult grading practices throughout the undergraduate colleges at Cornell.</p>
<p>While Cornell's efforts at increasing student mental health services is admirable and serves as a model, the time has come for Cornell Professors and Administration to ask why is it that our students have a level of dissatisfaction and pressure that is not found at any of our peer schools. It does seem rather manifest that the level of student dissatisfaction is significantly tied to the extraordinarily difficult and often unfair grading practices which are employed by a significant number of departments. Professors need to understand that our students are competing against students from peer schools who, by most every account and study, receive significantly higher average grades. How can a Cornell student fairly compete against a student from, say Columbia, when that school has no policy of creating a bell curve for grade distribution in any department, and almost 70% of all the grades they issue their undergraduates are A, similar to Brown, Yale and others? The Cornell practice of taking a high achieving student body and then, in many instances, issuing them grades on a bell curve, has resulted and continues to result, in substantial student dissatisfaction, something from which none of our peer or peer-like schools suffer. </p>
<p>Increased mental health services and increased dialogue between students, faculty and administration is a positive. Yet it still does not solve or directly address the underlying problem, which is largely rooted in the unreasonably harsh grading practices utilized at Cornell. Add to this practice the policy of posting what the Registrar terms "median" grades on transcripts and you have an unreasonably high pressure atmosphere. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the posting of median grades on transcripts adversely impacts the vast majority of students, and thus even further enhances student stress levels.</p>
<p>Is there even one Professor at Cornell who had median grades on his or her undergraduate transcript? Is there even more than a handful of present students who knew of Cornell's harsh grading practices, or that they would have "median" grades on their transcript, before they matriculated? Is it any surprise that the end result is many unhappy students?</p>
<p>Cornell students and faculty should work together. Students love to learn and so does the faculty. Yet it is difficult to truly love learning when, as a student, you know that the grading policy at Cornell is significantly more difficult than most, if not all, peer schools. The perception that employers and graduate programs factor in Cornell's difficult grading is not at all supported by the data, which is reflected in our employment success rate or graduate admissions rate as documented by a number of reliable publications. A cursory review of the employment practices at any large financial sector company, law school or graduate program, reveals that they do not take a college's grading practice into account. </p>
<p>With the existing grading practices at Cornell which are harsher than most (possibly all) ivy and ivy-like schools, combined with the additional difficulty posed by median grade reporting on transcripts, how can a Cornell student fairly compete?</p>
<p>Professors, read this: Grade students more fairly; do not create a bell curve amongst a class of students that are often all well qualified and gifted. Give students the grade they earn. If they all get As, give them all As. If they all get Bs, give them all Bs. If Columbia or Brown can have introductory courses in economics or physics where nearly every single student can earn and receive a grade of A, why can't Cornell? </p>
<p>Students, read this: Professors do care and are not working against you. They want to challenge and get the best out of you. We are all in this together. Let professors and administration know of your concerns and what you think can be done to help you, your fellow students, and the University.</p>
<p>Administratiors, read this: Why has median grade posting on transcripts not been finally eliminated? How many more students have to be burdened by a transcript full of median grades, which by any explanation, interpretation or evaluation almost always works against the Cornell student in his or her post-undergraduate pursuits.</p>
<p>Professors, Administration and Students, read this: Let us not be afraid to ask the difficult questions about student satisfaction and make the changes that are necessary. Let us all do what is best for the continued success of this great University, its faculty and its students.</p>
<p>A recent and proud graduate.</p>