To comeback with another prospective from Duke: I am a senior at Duke...double major Chemistry and Math, what most people would say are not the easiest majors in the world. I guarantee that the author of the Wash Post article is correct...there is grade inflation at Duke.
In many of my classes (yes, sorry to say predominantely humanities) grades have been absurd. It takes an EFFORT to get a grade lower than a B in the vast majority of classes at Duke. This holds even in the hard sciences. To say that first year calculus is the most failed course on campus may be true...but the failure rate is still exceedingly small...i would estimate below 2%.
The people I do know that have done poorly in classes (Cs, Ds, Fs) openly admit they never went to or did any work for the class. I know people who have intentionally missed finals and still gotten Bs!!!!
After my four years here, I have never once felt like a teacher is grading unfairly to counteract grade inflation, in the humanities or otherwise. I am not saying Duke is a joke; it requires a significant amount of work to get an A in many classes. However, it is almost impossible to do worse than a B-.
As an interesting sidenote, Professor Rojstaczer, while at Duke, was a professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment. It is well known on campus that the Nicholas School is very easy (not to the level of sociology, but close).
One of the effects of defining corporations as individuals, with the full constitutional protection accorded to "real" people, has allowed the perpetuation of the lobbying that led to Congress passing the CTEA.
Because corporations are considered people, they have the right to free speech. This allows them to lobby effectively, and will likely lead to sharp changes to the McCain-Feingold campaign reform act (which tries to limit that kind of speech, as it relates to elections). However, IMHO there is a central falicy in this definition. The purpose of a corporation (of any business) is to make money for itself and its stock holders. Therefore, all speech performed by a corporation (or any person acting as a representative of that corporation) can be considered to be engaging in commercial speech.
This could lead to some interesting changes in the way the government is run, given that the Supreme Court has allowed strong curtailing of commercial speech...perhaps the CTEA would have never been passed.
Slashdot Mirror
To comeback with another prospective from Duke:
I am a senior at Duke...double major Chemistry and Math, what most people would say are not the easiest majors in the world. I guarantee that the author of the Wash Post article is correct...there is grade inflation at Duke.
In many of my classes (yes, sorry to say predominantely humanities) grades have been absurd. It takes an EFFORT to get a grade lower than a B in the vast majority of classes at Duke. This holds even in the hard sciences. To say that first year calculus is the most failed course on campus may be true...but the failure rate is still exceedingly small...i would estimate below 2%.
The people I do know that have done poorly in classes (Cs, Ds, Fs) openly admit they never went to or did any work for the class. I know people who have intentionally missed finals and still gotten Bs!!!!
After my four years here, I have never once felt like a teacher is grading unfairly to counteract grade inflation, in the humanities or otherwise. I am not saying Duke is a joke; it requires a significant amount of work to get an A in many classes. However, it is almost impossible to do worse than a B-.
As an interesting sidenote, Professor Rojstaczer, while at Duke, was a professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment. It is well known on campus that the Nicholas School is very easy (not to the level of sociology, but close).
Because corporations are considered people, they have the right to free speech. This allows them to lobby effectively, and will likely lead to sharp changes to the McCain-Feingold campaign reform act (which tries to limit that kind of speech, as it relates to elections). However, IMHO there is a central falicy in this definition. The purpose of a corporation (of any business) is to make money for itself and its stock holders. Therefore, all speech performed by a corporation (or any person acting as a representative of that corporation) can be considered to be engaging in commercial speech.
This could lead to some interesting changes in the way the government is run, given that the Supreme Court has allowed strong curtailing of commercial speech...perhaps the CTEA would have never been passed.
Just thought I would drop in my two cents.
Andrew