Monday, November 29, 2010

Academic Integrity - for professor's grading

A student came to my office asking for his grade. He has worked hard on our several projects that are not related to the course. I appreciate his contribution to those projects. For the course, he completed all assignments several months late and the final report was mediocre. Even his final presentation was pretty good, to be fair to other students, I gave him an B, not good, but definitely a passing grade.

After realizing he received an B from me, he was upset, "I worked so hard for you, the B is such an insult!" and stormed out of the office. I tried to explain to him that as an academic, I have to keep the academic integrity. If I assigned a better grade to the course because of non-related projects, that will be an insult to me, him and the university. It simply won't happen in an ethical environment. I can only wish he will learn the lesson that a grade, a degree meant so much in the society precisely because it is objective, not because if a professor appreciate a students help or have great working relationship with him, or his father gave a large donation to the university, etc.