Motivation to Examine Grading at Rice 2009 Comments from faculty in final plenary meeting discussion leads to formation of first senate WG on grade inflation Findings: pattern of GPA increases over the years and differences among schools Eventually result in redistribution of Latin Honors among schools 2012 Discussions about how cutoff for summa cum laude remains >4.0 in many schools leads to second WG on grade inflation

Committee and Charge Co-Chairs:  Jane Grande-Allen (Engineering) and Evan Siemann (Natural Sciences) Members:  Richard Stoll (Social Sciences)                     Peter Loewen (Shepherd School of Music)                     Rebecca Goetz (Humanities) – Spring 2013 Julie Fette (Humanities) – Fall 2013 Joshua Eyler, ex officio (Center for Teaching Excellence) – Fall 2013                     David Tenney, ex officio (Registrar)                     Chynna Foucek (Student Association)  Staff Assistant: Sharon Mathews Charge: enumerate possible changes in policies and procedures that would work against grade inflation, and to evaluate the potential costs and benefits of such changes

Latin Honors Cutoffs Prior to 2012: http://registrar.rice.edu/students/latin_honors_old/ 2012-2013: http://registrar.rice.edu/students/aca_honors/

Majors differ in the proportion of the Latin honors awarded that are summa cum laude Expected: Summa ~ 1/6 Magna ~ 1/3 Cum ~ 1/2

What are other schools doing? Yale’s Recent Experience “Approved by the faculty with no controversy: Encourage discussion about grading policies in each department by requiring chairs to report to the Yale College annually about those policies.” (dept chairs supposed to discuss cases of grading extremes with instructors) “Distribute data to the faculty every year on the average grades in every department.” Yale Alumni Magazine, Sept 2013

Tabled at Yale Convert from letter grades to 0-100 numerical scale (passing is 60 and above) Establish non-mandatory guidelines for departments to follow, i.e., a grade collar/ distribution system. 35% 90-100 40% 80-89 20% 70-79 4-5% 60-69 0-1% failing

Awarding of A+ Among Rice’s Peers Barnard Columbia Cornell Oberlin Williams A+ = 4.0 Amherst Dartmouth Duke Johns Hopkins Princeton Swarthmore Penn Washington Univ Wesleyan No A+ Bryn Mawr Carleton Georgetown Harvard MIT* Mount Holyoke Northwestern Pomona* Smith Trinity U Chicago U Rochester Wellesley Yale

Working Group Activities Spring 2013 Met with all Deans May 2013 Interim report to Senate Emailed preliminary recommendations to all faculty via sen-fac at the end of the Spring 2013 semester. Data analysis in wiki. Fall 2013 Presentations to faculty Chairs (Engi, NS, Music) Town Halls (all schools)* *Most poorly attended Presentation to Student Association Dec 2013 Report to Senate