Posted on 05/05/2008 6:18:42 PM PDT by brwnsuga
NORFOLK
At the end of this semester, Steven Aird will lose his job as an associate professor of biology at Norfolk State University for giving out too many F's.
He is not going quietly.
Aird says his termination is part of a dumbing-down of academic standards at NSU - a move by administrators to intimidate faculty members into passing undeserving students and rewarding inferior work.
Other faculty members in NSU's School of Science and Technology say they, too, have experienced pressure to bend their standards to pass more students, and more than a dozen current and former students in the school back up Aird's claim.
Because it is a personnel issue, NSU administrators declined to comment directly about Aird's case. But Sharon Hoggard, a university spokeswoman, flatly rejected Aird's accusation that the school has dumbed down its standards.
"It goes against our very mission, which is to provide an affordable high-quality education for an ethnically and culturally diverse student population," Hoggard said in an e-mail response. She pointed out that NSU is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, for which it must meet stringent standards.
Aird says he understands, and believes in, NSU's mission. But he insists that too many of the university's students are ill-prepared for college-level work. "I really care about my students," he said. "That's why I refuse to lower the bar. The objective should be competence, not grades."
For more than four years, Aird has carried on a running battle in which NSU administrators repeatedly pressed him to raise his pass rate and he steadfastly refused.
Twice, he was denied tenure and issued a one-year terminal contract, meaning he would have to leave at the end of the year. After the first denial, he filed a grievance. A faculty grievance committee found in his favor, ruling that the tenure decision was flawed by procedural violations and retaliatory actions by administrators.
He reapplied and was turned down again, despite a favorable recommendation by a departmental tenure review committee. Citing seven classes in which 83 to 95 percent of his students got a D or F, Sandra DeLoatch, dean of the School of Science and Technology, wrote that Aird's "core problem" was "the overwhelming failure of the vast majority of the students he teaches."
His bosses say it's the teacher's responsibility to make sure the lessons are getting through. Carol Simpson, provost at Old Dominion University, agreed that a professor's high failure rate would be an appropriate matter for some type of intervention.
"It would send a flag that something is amiss," she said. "What that something is - it could be all kinds of things, depending on the class and the students and the professor. But it does say that all is not well. You would expect a reasonable bell-shaped curve where the top part of the bell is maybe a middle C. You wouldn't expect to have huge numbers failing."
The problem could be the difficulty of the material, the students' level of preparation or the way the material is being presented, Simpson said.
"Not every professor is an expert in the classroom," she said, "although they may be terrific researchers or scholars."
Hoggard, the NSU spokeswoman, said the university uses a multifaceted assessment of teaching effectiveness based on faculty portfolios, student ratings, peer evaluations and comments from the department chair and dean.
This semester, his last, Aird has been removed from the classroom. He spends his time doing research and job-hunting. At 55, he faces the possible end of his academic career.
Aird grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington and earned a doctorate in zoology from Colorado State University. A published researcher, he specializes in the chemistry of poisonous snake venoms.
After four years as a university teacher and researcher in Brazil, he came to NSU in 2002 and was assigned to the chemistry department. His first semester, 22 of the 24 students in his biochemistry course got Ds, Fs or dropped the class. In a November 2003 memo, Associate Dean Larry Mattix warned him: "This low level of student success is unacceptable."
In 2004, Aird was reassigned to the biology department.
The issue surfaced again quickly. In a December 2004 memo, Camellia Okpodu, the biology department chair, expressed alarm about the grades in lab sections of the freshman-level biology course. Dean DeLoatch, in rejecting Aird's application for tenure in March 2007, reiterated the theme again.
Each time, Aird's response was unbending. "I believe that we serve our students and our country best when we help our students to discover and develop their abilities, and when we help them develop the intellectual tools and the strength of character to overcome the obstacles they will encounter in life," he wrote in reply to Okpodu. "That cannot be accomplished, as so many at NSU have tried, by pandering to them and to their parents with inflated grades and pass rates."
To support his allegations of grade inflation, Aird performed a statistical analysis of two common exams that were given to all students taking the freshman-level biology course in the fall of 2005. The median grade in all sections on both exams - taught by five different professors - was F.
His final grades were an accurate reflection of students' performance on those two exams, Aird wrote the dean.
Hoggard said attributing the discrepancy between exam results and final grades to grade inflation is too simplistic.
"Every student doesn't learn in the same way," she said. "It becomes the duty of the faculty member to find ways to ensure that his or her students are understanding the material."
Student testimonials to Aird cite his passion for biology, his enthusiasm in the classroom and his willingness to help students who are struggling.
Natalie James, a senior biology major, took Aird's zoology class in 2006. "He told us at the beginning of the semester, 'It's going to hurt, and I'm going to really push you.'
"I was up at 2 o'clock many mornings e-mailing him with questions. It was a challenge the whole time."
James said Aird had a pleasant attitude and she learned more than she could have imagined in one semester. At the end of the course, she said, "I came out with an A by the skin of my teeth."
In contrast, James said, she easily received an A in another class. "Yes, it looks nice when you get out with a 4.0 GPA, but then you go to medical school and you know nothing."
Tiana Stephenson, a junior journalism major, took Aird's freshman biology class in 2005 and found it difficult, despite Aird's out-of-class assistance.
"I got a D - the only one I've ever gotten," she said. "If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have taken his course. I was still in a high-school mindset, and he's not a high-school teacher."
Some of Aird's colleagues agree that professors feel pressure to pass more students.
At the School of Science and Technology, said Joseph Hall, a chemistry professor and president of the Faculty Senate, "faculty are - I'll use a nice word - encouraged to try and pass 70 percent of their students." If the rate drops below 70 percent, he said, "faculty are called in and asked to explain what they're going to do about it."
Aird thinks the phenomenon is due in part to the evolution of a "consumer culture" in higher education. He argues that administrators are tempted to placate students and parents with good grades to keep the tuition dollars flowing.
The financial pressure is particularly acute at NSU. Alone among Virginia state schools, most of which are experiencing significant growth, NSU's enrollment has declined by more than one-third over the past 15 years.
Hall echoed Aird's view that many NSU students come poorly prepared for college work.
Because so many have deficient study habits and poor writing skills, he said, "if you adhere to a certain standard, you would flunk a significant number of them, and you have to do something to try to get them to catch up." For instance, Hall said, he gives optional bonus quizzes to help students pull up their grades.
Hall said he counseled Aird to be more flexible, to no avail.
"I think what Steve decided was that the university should put programs in place to build up the background of the students, or admit better students. And he stuck to those guns."
Cassandra Newby-Alexander, an NSU history professor and vice president of the Faculty Senate, chaired the faculty committee that upheld Aird's grievance. She said there's always room for improving one's teaching technique, but she felt Aird deserved a chance to be mentored. "He didn't get the fair shake he should have had an opportunity to get."
If they didn't, they'd have to close their doors. I recently received a resume from a UC Berzerkeley grad, with a B.S. in Civil Engineering. One of the qualifications about which he bragged:
"I no AutoCAD 2008 and have passed there level three sertication."
I've had it framed! :o)
The easier to peel tax dollars from, my Pretties!
“Aird thinks the phenomenon is due in part to the evolution of a “consumer culture” in higher education.”
....the attitude is “I am the customer, you must please me”...the kid turns their work in late, cuts class, takes cell phone calls in class, flunks the mid term ect. and then bitches when they get a D....we gotta bring the draft back.
“That colleges actually offer remedial math and English AND accept students who need those classes still astounds me.”
....I get exactly where you’re coming from Lizavetta but please, we can’t use the term “remedial” OK?....it might lower some one’s self esteem ;-) ...the appropriate term is “developmental English and Math”....my wife used to be a “developmental English” professor and it’s guaranteed job insurance for life....the supply of high school screw ups who can’t write a simple declarative sentence is endless....problem is, many of them are also lazy and indifferent and no fun to teach....five years was enough for my wife...
“What’s really sad now is that I hesitate going to a “minority” doctor.....”
....I don’t hesitate at all...I don’t go to a minority doctor because they have the lowest MCAT scores*....med schools overlook that, and race norm the admittance standards to have “diversity” in the freshman class....this is just another way political correctness hurts society.
*MCAT is the med school aptitude test....just like the GRE for grad school
that same year,though, I was pleased to find out that a kid that was way down the list at #17 who had taken all the hard science courses got a full academic ride to Notre Dame....
That minority doctor still has to pass the medical boards. If that person was passed through school due to minority status, they'd get caught at the boards. In fact, I think they'd have problems in med school and wouldn't be able to coast on grade-inflated As and Bs received in undergrad.
I'm a minority and have a JD as well as a PhD. I am getting sick to death of the anti-minority bashing that seems to be more frequent on these boards. Obama hatred seems to have brought out the worst in my FReeper brothers and sisters lately. (I'm not an Obama supporter, nor a soldier in Operation Chaos. See the tagline; I don't vote for Dims.)
btw - White kids cry and moan about their grades all the time. They threaten to have their parents call, their parents' lawyer call, to go to the Dean, and everything else. It's NOT a minority issue, it's a 'students as customers' mindset held by the universities and colleges.
Why - because teachers and professors are almost universally liberal and not working for what they get is a religion to them!
Do the laws of chemistry or biology change at MIT? Facts are facts. Why not make NSU as good as MIT rather just another school for shirkers?
It’s not possible to fully evaluate such student failures without looking at the course materials, exams and assignments, etc. to see if the instructor expectatons seem reasonable for an introductory course in that subject. It does sound like he is facing classrooms full of unprepared and non-performing students, but it is possible to crush just about any group of freshmen in the country if you make the exams hard enough and/or present so much material and such a difficult level that few freshmen anywhere would pass. Still, it doesn’t sound to me like that’s what is happening here — from the administrator comments it sounds to me as though they probably do have an extremely unprepared and ill-performing group of students, and the administration simply wants to keep passing bodies through the mill to keep the $$$ flowing.
I would ask you to look a little deeper as that is much too capitalistic for our educators today. Why are prices (tuition) going up so rapidly lately? Hint: Government grants and subsidies based on number of students and the number of students is based on how easy and fun the school. That amount is also effected by the tuition - the higher the more money from Uncle Sam.
"Students as customers" implies a buying and selling arrangement. In fact, it is more like farm subsidies and central planning with the "customer" just being a pawn between the seller and the government.
Eventually, no one will be able to afford to go so the government will be "forced" to provide Universal Education, like Universal Health Care.
In its purest sense I agree that this particular situation is not a minority issue but minorities do play a part in the bigger scheme of things.
A large number of minorities, including women who make up nearly 50% of the population, have been encouraged and propagandized into becoming victims to set up this kind of arrangement.
Give them (minorities, meaning all but white men) enough government money and support to keep them functioning as victims but not enough direction to get them out of the victim class, add political correctness and the glorification of a misused definition of diversity for special considerations and you have the recipe for our present situation.
These are not unintended consequences but, instead, are the desired results of those intent on using our freedoms, moral beliefs and generosity to destroy our strong and great society for their own benefit.
I’m not “minority bashing”.....I’m reflecting the skepticism that comes from 20 years of Affirmative Action....that’s the reality. And, I agree it’s students of all stripes who are lazy....and whining.
see Post 47....your comments?
You are right on the money RH. This isn’t a minority issue. Weak students are weak students. Skin color is irrelevant to this problem. Any community college in the country, along with any city or regional state school (not the figurehead state universities) is in the business of converting federal financial aid dollars into bureaucrats’ salaries.
Black, white, brown or green, these schools are not going to punish weak students. They are going to pass them along, hoping that despite the students’ weak skills, weak motivational patterns and weak environments, there will eventually be some worthwhile learning.
Finally, remember that being academically weak doesn’t mean that your educational case is hopeless. People grow and mature. Give the schools a little credit.
You don’t have to worry about your doctor. Pass or fail, there aren’t many Norfolk State Students who are going to survive the grind long enough to complete medical school anywhere. The few that can survive— they are very strong people, dedicated to their goals, and not a bad bet for competent care.
Well said. If I ever need a neurosurgeon I’d definitely go with Benjamin Carson.
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/car1bio-1
Yes, I can understand having a "wash out" class early in the game, so that students who are not going to make it can find out early enough that they can switch to a different major. In that context it makes sense
I am a black nursing student and I know more than a few great nurses who graduated from NSU. I did not feel that this article was an issue of race, but an example of how we cripple our children by not requiring or expecting excellence from them. I hesitated posting it because, all the under-cover-Kluckers seem to come out of the woodwork if they smell the chum of RACE in the water. And unfortunately, my predictions were correct.
You got it wrong. It's:
"Obama's hatred seems to have brought out the worst...
I wouldn't expect that at all. Why would you expect that?
This is college biology.
The natural rate of high school biology mastery is probably around 25% of the 18-year old population.
With an "ethnically and culturally diverse population", it's probably much less.
"Different learning styles" is a code phrase. It doesn't apply to hard sciences.
Of course, poor Dr. Aird knew he was walking the plank. Congratulations to an honest man.
>> Do the laws of chemistry or biology change at MIT? Facts are facts. Why not make NSU as good as MIT rather just another school for shirkers? <<
Fine, if he can do that, wonderful. But the professor is obviously failing to get his kids to learn. Not saying it’s his fault: if his students could’ve gotten into UVirginia, they’d’ve gone to UVirginia. But if he’s expecting them to perform like MIT students, what he’s doing is a little like a Little-league coach benching his clean-up hitter for not being able to hit a home run out of Yankee Stadium.
Sure, every Little-league slugger should dream of smashing a home run out of Yankee Stadium, but is it a realistic expectation?
OTOH, I don’t know that’s what the professor is thinking. But if he’s so wonderful that he can expect his students to learn as much as MIT students, maybe he should have applied to a teaching position at nearby William and Mary?
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