BY JOHN K. WILSON

Northwestern University professors Jackie Stevens and Jorge Coronado, two officers of the Northwestern AAUP chapter, have an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times today titled “Hey, Northwestern students, choose your own grade point average!”

The article criticizes a new Northwestern University policy adopted by the administration during the pandemic.

As faculty members at Northwestern, and as officers in the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors, we worry that a surprise grade change policy announced earlier this fall shamelessly eviscerates Northwestern’s educational mission.

Under this new temporary policy, Northwestern students can choose to adopt a “credit/no credit” option after they receive the grade for a class.

Stevens and Coronado write:

It’s sort of like the Choose Your Own Stir Fry station at the Northwestern dining halls that guides show off to prospective students, or used to show off before the pandemic: students need to see the full panoply of proteins, veggies, and starches before they order. Thus, Choose Your Own GPA.

It’s also an important issue about not just academic standards, but faculty control and shared governance. When faculty judgments about student performance can simply disappear thanks to an administrative policy created without adequate faculty input, it undermines the critical role of faculty in the classroom.

Stevens and Coronado conclude:

We call on NU’s leadership to stop viewing students as valued customers. Our mission as faculty is to provide the students in our classes with an education, not to churn out increasingly meaningless degrees.

Read the full essay at the Chicago Sun-Times.