• Next message: Hardy M. Cook: "Re: Great Caesar's Ghost"
• Previous message: Hardy M. Cook: "More Perry Mason Shakespeare 1964 Episode 204"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ]

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2912  Friday, 28 December 2001

[1]     From:   Clifford Stetner <cstetner@worldnet.att.net>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Dec 2001 18:12:44 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2895 Re: Grade Inflation

[2]     From:   Martin Steward <MSteward@mds1974.freeserve.co.uk>
        Date:   Friday, 28 Dec 2001 09:29:20 -0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2895 Re: Grade Inflation


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Clifford Stetner <cstetner@worldnet.att.net>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Dec 2001 18:12:44 -0500
Subject: 12.2895 Re: Grade Inflation
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2895 Re: Grade Inflation

The main thing missing from this argument is a definition of the term
“liberal.” The piece refers once to “people on the Left,” but the people
running Harvard can not surely be lumped together with radical
Marxists.  “Liberal” then seems only to be a synonym for a tendency to
tolerance over stricture, but this is a tautology that defines anyone
who bestows higher grades than a student strictly merits as “liberal.”
If leftist politics had anything to do with grade inflation and the
resulting decline in academic standards, American college students
should be miles ahead of Europeans which is certainly not the case.

Moreover, the institution of student course evaluations (a “liberal”
policy of the 70s) is only shown to result in grade inflation among
“young professors or part-time faculty without tenure,” and the tenured
professors I know don’t give much of a rat’s tail about them, but the
explosion of untenured contingent instructors in the university system
who are in continual peril of joblessness is clearly a consequence of
the corporatization of the university system in the 80s and 90s. The
piece begins by acknowledging that “liberal” control of the ivy league
broke the preexisting elitism which amounted to grade inflation for the
rich and powerful and replaced it with a merit priniciple and that this
principle has broken down over time owing to the “liberals’” loss of
their own moral authority. How then can it conclude by attributing grade
inflation to “liberalism” or more implicitly “the Left,” as it existed
in another form before leftists were allowed anywhere near a teaching
post and only reemerged with the corporatization of the university
system which allows market forces to determine policy?

The other missing piece is the Wall Street Journal agenda that would
conclude that a more thoroughly corporatized university, completely
devoid of tenure for probably leftist professors would bring American
college education up to European standards.  As most readers of the Wall
Street Journal will probably not get past the headline and first
paragraph before proceeding to the market reports, this is probably the
conclusion they will draw.

Clifford

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Martin Steward <MSteward@mds1974.freeserve.co.uk>
Date:           Friday, 28 Dec 2001 09:29:20 -0000
Subject: 12.2895 Re: Grade Inflation
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2895 Re: Grade Inflation

In recent postings on the subject of grade inflation, there seems to
have been terrible confusion over exactly what a “liberal” is. Somehow
it appears to have become synonymous with “anyone who pursues
multicultural or Marxist ideology”. And yet this person would surely be
illiberal, or at least anti-liberal. Doesn’t liberalism explicitly
reject (in its own terms) ideological concerns? Do not the
“conservatives” in this debate deserve the label rather than those who
usually get saddled with it? God knows, “The Wall Street Journal” is
about as liberal a publication as one could imagine.

This is indicative of the wooliness that emerges as a result of a
perfectly useful word being abused as a mere insult.

Personally, I think that the “grade inflation” controversy is just
another example of the endless project of (some of) the over-50s to
denigrate, criminalize and disenfranchize the under-30s, which itself
originates in self-loathing.

m

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, editor@ws.bowiestate.edu
The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>

DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
editor assumes no responsibility for them.

• Next message: Hardy M. Cook: "Re: Great Caesar's Ghost"
• Previous message: Hardy M. Cook: "More Perry Mason Shakespeare 1964 Episode 204"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ]