Hi, I've heard a number of times that some faculty (and program heads) consider their programs as contracts with the students - that you pay a certain amount of money, and you get a degree. "Professional" programs are often framed this way (those that attract more disciplined and often older students). While I can certainly see the appeal of this (particularly from an administrator's point of view), if a program is accredited, there needs to be a sense of rigorous assessment built into the grading schema. A "C" has always meant "average", and if your students are doing average work, give them average grades. The flipside of aggressive and difficult grading is that you need to be prepared to do aggressive and difficult rationalization, and I know a lot of professors who are turned off by this. But this seems only fair to me - if you give a harsh grade, you need to offer both constructive criticism and a thorough substantiation of the grade. This is no different than a harsh critique - "It sucks" doesn't cut it in Design, as you have to explain WHY it sucks.
So I guess my answer to your question about administrative imperatives is that your grading should be in no way connected to or influenced by that imperative - you can give fair grades and still have 15 students in a class. And I truly think you owe it to all paying students to give fair grades, because when someone who gets straight As and naively thinks they can get a job at a high pressure consultancy has no design skills to speak of, they get a rude awakening during their interview and they begin to negatively taint the reputation of the institution. That isn't fair to the company, to the student, or to the school. "And it annoys the pig..." :) Jon On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 10:11 AM, Christine Boese <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote: > These are excellent points Jon, and many programs sincerely strive to do > this. > > But having worked in such programs through bad economic times as well as > good, I have another question to pose to you. What do you do when > administrators REQUIRE numbers, and the quality of your students, for > various reasons, is not that good, and the majority can't survive the rigors > you want to put them through? > > There are two sides of this, particularly with grad class recruitment > efforts and admissions. In good economic times, the primo students are being > snagged up straight to industry, so you can end up with weak classes of > students that way. > > And in bad economic times, really bad times, beyond when layoffs send folks > to grad or second degree programs, people just don't have the money to spend > on an expensive school (esp if student loan sources are completely drying > up). > > There is a sweetspot, I suppose, where bad economic times fill classes > with great students, before they start to cull them due to lack of funds. > > But there's an administrative imperative (you must admit a new class of 15 > grad students every fall, for instance) that can be quite demoralizing for a > faculty member, I have to say. And then the next thing you know (probably > not at SCAD, but elsewhere), you've got a class of students you have to show > how to open and close multiple windows and save files on a server for > collaborative projects. > > It's a dilemma, so if you don't have an answer to my question, join the > club! If you do have an answer, tho, please share! It will make me feel > better. > > Chris > > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
