1. Motivation to Examine Grading at Rice
2009 Comments from faculty in final plenary meeting discussion leads to formation of first senate WG on grade inflation
Findings: pattern of GPA increases over the years and differences among schools
Eventually result in redistribution of Latin Honors among schools
2012 Discussions about how cutoff for summa cum laude remains >4.0 in many schools leads to second WG on grade inflation

2. Committee and Charge
Co-Chairs:  Jane Grande-Allen (Engineering) and
Evan Siemann (Natural Sciences)
Members:  Richard Stoll (Social Sciences)
                    Peter Loewen (Shepherd School of Music)
                    Rebecca Goetz (Humanities) – Spring 2013
Julie Fette (Humanities) – Fall 2013
Joshua Eyler, ex officio (Center for Teaching Excellence) – Fall 2013
                    David Tenney, ex officio (Registrar)
                    Chynna Foucek (Student Association) 
Staff Assistant: Sharon Mathews
Charge: enumerate possible changes in policies and procedures that would work against grade inflation, and to evaluate the potential costs and benefits of such changes

3. Latin Honors Cutoffs Prior to 2012: :

4. Majors differ in the proportion of the Latin honors awarded that are summa cum laude
Expected:
Summa ~ 1/6
Magna ~ 1/3
Cum ~ 1/2

5. What are other schools doing? Yale’s Recent Experience
“Approved by the faculty with no controversy:
Encourage discussion about grading policies in each department by requiring chairs to report to the Yale College annually about those policies.”
(dept chairs supposed to discuss cases of grading extremes with instructors)
“Distribute data to the faculty every year on the average grades in every department.”
Yale Alumni Magazine, Sept 2013

6. Tabled at Yale
Convert from letter grades to numerical scale (passing is 60 and above)
Establish non-mandatory guidelines for departments to follow, i.e., a grade collar/ distribution system.
35%
40% 80-89
20% 70-79
4-5% 60-69
0-1% failing

7. Awarding of A+ Among Rice’s Peers
Barnard
Columbia
Cornell
Oberlin
Williams
A+ = 4.0
Amherst
Dartmouth
Duke
Johns Hopkins
Princeton
Swarthmore
Penn
Washington Univ
Wesleyan
No A+
Bryn Mawr
Carleton
Georgetown
Harvard
MIT*
Mount Holyoke
Northwestern
Pomona*
Smith
Trinity
U Chicago
U Rochester
Wellesley
Yale

8. Working Group Activities
Spring 2013 Met with all Deans
May Interim report to Senate
ed preliminary recommendations to all faculty via sen-fac at the end of the Spring 2013 semester. Data analysis in wiki.
Fall Presentations to faculty
Chairs (Engi, NS, Music)
Town Halls (all schools)*
*Most poorly attended
Presentation to Student Association
Dec Report to Senate