What’s wrong with higher education? Even if you’re not an inquiring mind and don’t really care, Matthew Continetti wants to tell you in the WSJ’s “Free Expression.” You see, first-semester freshmen at the University of Michigan in fall 2027 won’t receive letter grades.”
The policy, according to the school, is meant to curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals.
Translation: We give up. Enforcing academic standards is too difficult. Making achievement-based distinctions is too hierarchical. So long as the tuition dollars and federal subsidies keep rolling in, so long as the diploma mill continues to churn, we can afford to look away.
Mr. Continetti is here to unpack the nonsense:
First, if school administrators truly wished to improve student mental health, they would ban technology from classrooms and other places of instruction, and smartphones from campus dining rooms and restaurants.
Continetti writes how his classes at American University were tech-free. No phones, no laptops for 75 minutes. Students take notes in pencil or pen, which they can use during in-class written assessments. Mr. Continetti stopped assigning take-home research papers not long after the release of ChatGPT.
Some 30 states restrict cellphones in public schools from “bell to bell.” Another eight states prohibit phones during class. Such policies are popular. Parents get it. Smartphones are the ultimate distractions. Take them away, and students are forced to look up at the chalkboard.
Private clubs often require patrons to put their phones away upon entry. Asking students to do the same while entering the dining hall or business school sandwich shop would lead to grumbling, for sure. But it would also lead to more personal interaction, and happier people. It might even lead to dates.
Michigan’s administrators claim they have the students’ best interests in mind.
The no-grades policy, they add, will allow freshmen to “acclimate to the demands of college and allow intrinsic motivations to guide personally meaningful academic journeys.”
Academic Mediocrity
How, asks Mr. Continetti, can freshmen “acclimate to the demands of college” when a college makes no demands?
Are “intrinsic motivations” enough for good work?
A few students may be intrinsically motivated to attend every class, complete every assignment and meet with professors during office hours. They’re the exception. And they should be rewarded for their effort with an exceptional grade.
Essential Hypocrisy
Professors will assign letter grades for scholarship purposes …
… even though grades won’t be recorded on a transcript.
How this will reduce the stress of acclimating to college is a mystery. Won’t students on scholarship continue to strive, knowing their future depends on these invisible grades? Won’t distinctions between students remain, even under the pretense of a grade-free environment?
From Michigan history professor Derek Peterson:
“If we can find ways to open up space for students to experiment while also protecting their future employability, which means protecting the GPAs, I think it is a good idea.”
Mr. Continetti notes that Mr. Peterson, an expert on antisemitic Ugandan despot Idi Amin and who valorized pro-Hamas activists in this year’s commencement speech, uses the word “protecting” twice while denying that students are coddled. (Coddle: “to treat tenderly; nurse or tend indulgently; pamper.”)
Have we grown all too familiar with Mr. Peterson’s academic doublespeak, which cloaks irresponsibility in a gown of self-righteousness?
We’ve grown all too familiar with destructive policies enacted under the banner of compassion and equity, continues Mr. Continetti.
But, he advises, we don’t have to accept them.
