This morning's story about grade inflation ("At U, concern grows that 'A' stands for average") noted a proposal at the University of Minnesota to add detail to transcripts. The text of the proposed resolution is below.
It was written by Christopher Cramer, a chemistry professor who has urged the faculty to tamp down on grade inflation.
"The transcript has become almost a meaningless piece of paper," he said. "Any rational consumer of transcripts may have trouble distinguishing the best students from the average students because there's not that much differentiation."
So he has proposed adding the share of students in the class who earned the same grade. That alone would not solve the problem of grade inflation, he admitted. But it would help the best students taking classes where few A's are given stand out, he said.
"This is a concrete idea that can be sold, accurately, as benefiting the best students," Cramer said. "If it has the collateral damage of addressing grade inflation because professors are embarrassed that now it's going to say 'A, 20-100,' hallelujah from my perspective."
Check out the details below. It's a surprisingly good, funny read.
