Is it just me, or does something seem stale at Brown? That fundamental Brunonian institution, the New Curriculum, turned forty years old last year and yet, even solidly into middle age, it has never had a systematic re-evaluation.
Most students have a vague allegiance to the system, mainly revolving around not having required classes and being able to take classes S/NC. We accept it as a part of Brown's identity and assume that the original proposals from 1969 still have our best interests at heart. It's ironic, then, that students passively accept the same New Curriculum that encourages them to be the active architects of their own educations.
With A's increasing to account for over fifty percent of grades in 2008, it is reasonable to take another look at our grading system. Next to our lack of requirements, Brown's grading is probably its most distinctive feature, spawning the ever-annoying winter break question of "Oh, Brown? So you, like, don't have grades, right?" Actually, that question might not be so far off base. The original GISP proposal for the New Curriculum recommended doing away with grades altogether, but worries about how graduate schools would react prompted them to keep grades — with several tweaks to them.
Thus we have the option to take any class Satisfactory/No Credit. Even the more traditional A/B/C/NC option is not entirely conventional, setting itself apart by eschewing pluses and minuses and not registering NC's or dropped classes. Thus the only grades showing on our official transcripts are A's, B's, C's or S's. We are definitely different from other schools, but is this system still in our best interest?
This grading system was a natural addition to the New Curriculum's lack of distribution requirements, encouraging academic exploration and a broad course of study. The S/NC option permits students to stretch themselves into unfamiliar academic territory without worrying about how they will do. Similarly, I know I'm not the only person who has benefited from being able to take an extra class, knowing that I could always drop it without consequence if it became too much of a burden.
Still, how many times have you heard a friend say, "Ugh, I got a B in that class. I knew I should have just taken it pass/fail," or known of a friend who — realizing that an NC would not show up on her transcript — just dropped her chemistry class to avoid getting a C? These are the perverse incentives this system unwittingly created. A student can elect to take a course S/NC if they know they are unlikely to receive an A in the class, hiding the grade from their transcript and their (unofficially calculated) GPA. If the student takes a class for a grade and is looking at a C going into the home stretch, many will counsel them to just drop the class or even throw the exam — better to pass only three classes than have a big ugly C on one's transcript.
This leaves us in an unreasonable new environment in which A's are the only "good" grade and anything else represents a failure on some level. When passing a class and getting a C is considered worse than failing the course, we know there is a problem. While the Brown grading system was created to further academic exploration, it's hard to deny that it now encourages laxity and perfectionism. Even if we like the system as it is, we should acknowledge its real outcomes today, rather than solely clinging to 40-year-old rhetoric.
I feel a few simple reforms could bring our grading system back down to earth. A requirement to complete at least the student portion of the course performance report (CPR) reflecting on one's work in S/NC classes could help prevent the classes from being "slacker options." We could also institute a deadline for the unrecorded drop, perhaps two-thirds of the way through the semester, allowing one time to know if an extra class is too much, but preventing the worst abuse. Last, either NC's could be recorded or D's could be added as a passing grade to make B's and C's more acceptable results.
Most of all, we should recognize that sometimes it isn't so bad to get our butt kicked by a class. The papers and classes in which I've gotten hammered have taught me far more than any "easy A" has. While being mindful of grad schools and future employment, I encourage students to view the occasional poor grade not as a sign of failure, but as a badge of pride for pushing themselves to their limits. Maybe a transcript full of A's is less a mark of a "perfect student" and more that of a student who has played it safe, missing the ultimate Brunonian goals of pushing into truly unfamiliar territory and up to the limits of one's capacities.
Kurt Walters '11 is a philosophy, politics and economics concentrator from Charlottesville, Va. He may be contacted at kurt_walters [at] brown.edu.
