“Why Grades Rise” Excerpt from “Why Grades Go Up,” Excellence Without a Soul

1. Back to Education “Why Grades Rise”Excerpt from “Why Grades Go Up,” Excellence Without a Soul Professor Peih-ying Lu December 27, 2010

2. Introduction of Excellence Without a Soul Harry Lewis, a Harvard professor for more than thirty years and Dean of Harvard College for eight, draws from his experience to explain how our great universities have abandoned their educational mission. The fundamental purpose of undergraduate education is to turn young people into adults who will take responsibility for society.

3. Introduction of Excellence Without a Soul Lewis provides struggles at Harvard, showing how its mission evolved from education to consumer satisfaction, and makes an impassioned argument for change. Excellence Without a Soul urges us to rethink the way we evaluate our most treasured universities.

4. In your high school life, have you ever encountered the situation that the school decides to raise students’ exam grades after most students have failed? What do you think about this practice? In your opinion, what is the optimal grading scale or system? Pre-reading Questions

5. Reasons that Lewis lists in his report • Pressure from students • Student evaluations and tenure decisions • Students are better • More small courses • Better teaching • Too many grade-scale categories • The special case of the humanities

6. Discussion Questions • What are the real life examples Lewis uses to explain the inflation of grades in academia? • Please comment on Lewis’s statement that professors want happy students. • Please identify the factors contribute to the “inflation” of grades in Lewis’s report in your own words.