Grading Guideline Goes Largely Unnoticed

By Danae Stahlnecker

Many students in the Leavey School of Business are still unaware of a grading guideline adopted almost three years ago.

The guideline suggests that in each class, professors do not give any more A's than there are B's, and that the total number of A's and B's should not be any more than 80 percent of the issued grades.

"It was interesting in that we didn't hear about it and that we didn't know about it," said freshman Delia Cuellar,  "I've talked to other business students and I know a lot of people don't know about it."

Upperclassmen, also attest to the low-key existence of the guideline.

"I have only had two professors mention it during the couple years that this grading procedure has been in effect," said senior accounting major Christi Lucas. "The first professor taught an extremely difficult class which everyone knew when they signed up for it. It wasn't expected that a lot of students would get A's to begin with, so the policy didn't really matter in that situation. The second professor who mentioned it taught an honors class and only brought up the policy to say that she wouldn't be following it for our class because it would be unfair since we were all top students to begin with."

Another concern that had initially been raised about the guideline was that it might cause too much competition. Supporters of the policy think that the business school should teach about working in a competitive atmosphere.

"It definitely raises the bar, but I think that's okay because we're studying business, and once you go out in the real world and you're doing business, you can't expect everybody to be nice," said Cuellar.

Faculty Director of Undergraduate Business Programs Carolyn Evans said, "We want our degree to be a really quality degree, and we want to send a signal that it's a good degree and that the grades here are meaningful."

"The second thing that we want is that we're trying to be fair — to be fair across all the classes and across all the sections, so if you take the same class with one professor versus another professor, you should get the same opportunity to get the same grade," she said.

Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Business Programs Jo-Anne Shibles admits that there was questioning of the guideline when it first came out, but that there have been no major controversies so far.

"When I first heard about the policy, I wasn't happy about it because I thought it would be unfair. However," said Lucas, "I have not felt affected by it."

Contact Danae Stahlnecker at dstahlnecker@scu.edu.