Re: [Phys-l] Smart Students

[Rick Tarara <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Quist, Oren" <Oren.Quist@SDSTATE.EDU>


> All this talk about how un-smart today's students are.
>
> Well, in this morning's paper is an article stating that 40% of all
> grades for all courses at the U. of Minnesota this year is an "A".
>
> This institution goes on to explain that this is about right as compared
> to other major universities.
>
> How could the grades be this high if the students were not exceptionally
> bright?????
I know you don't really need an answer ;-)  but it might be useful to list 
some.

1)  We don't want to be bruising student's self esteem by giving them any 
grade lower than a B, so naturally there will be many more As.

2  Newer faculty members don't want bad 'student evaluations'--thinking 
these have a major impact on their futures.

3)  Departments want to attract more majors to keep the internal funding 
flowing.  Can't be losing students to the Department of Television Cartoon 
Studies.

4)  The institution doesn't want to be losing students, having them go off 
to the University of Lower Minnesota State A&M, and thus losing state 
funding. [Worse if you are a private school charging REALLY BIG BUCKS.]

5)  All the U of Minnesota students come from Lake Wobegon!

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
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