Sacrilicious

The current CR/D/F policy is a failure

This spring marks the 25th anniversary of the Yale College faculty's adoption of a Credit/Fail (CR/F) policy. Yet despite the above passage from the Blue Book, the CR/D/F option—D was added as a possible grade in 1993—has devolved into something it was not intended to be. Professors can, and often do, choose not to offer their classes CR/D/F, and, as a result, the option is often abused by students. But the policy is not doomed to failure. Yale's faculty must broaden the scope of the CR/D/F option. Only by making it possible to take all lecture classes CR/D/F can the University make the option work as it was supposed to.

In 1996, the Yale College standing committee on teaching and learning studied the effects of the CR/D/F option and came to a similar conclusion. The committee recommended expanding the number of courses offered CR/D/F, or, failing that, eliminating the option entirely.

However, at the faculty meeting where the committee's recommendations were discussed, a counterproposal was passed that kept the status quo mostly intact, except for limiting the total number of CR marks that could be offered toward the bachelor's degree to four from eight. According to Associate Dean of Yale College John Meeske, JE '74, who was a member of the committee in 1996, well under 100 faculty members attended the meeting, and the counterproposal had not been on the agenda.

This created a vicious cycle. Professors are unhappy about how students use the CR/D/F option, so they remove it from their class. Students who would like to take the class but fear that their GPA will suffer elect to take one of the few classes for which CR/D/F is still available. Since this is not the class that they most wanted to take, they are more likely to coast to a mark of CR, which in turn angers yet another professor. According to Meeske, "Because so few courses are available under the option, all the negative effects of the system are magnified."

Beyond introductory classes, there are, indeed, few lecture classes offered CR/D/F. This disparity varies from department to department. Only five of 15 intermediate philo-sophy classes include the option, as do eight of 26 advanced economics classes (not inclu-ding departmental seminars). According to Scott Strobel, director of undergraduate studies in molecular biophysics and biochemistry (MB&B), no classes in MB&B are offered CR/D/F by departmental policy.

Because so many courses that students may want to take CR/D/F do not carry that option, "Students use [CR/D/F] as a gambling den," Meeske said. "It's a way to ensure you can do the minimal work in the course and cover it up."

Psychology Professor Robert Sternberg teaches the only Psychology 110 section that cannot be taken CR/D/F. "I don't have anything against the CR/D/F option in principle, but it has been corrupted," Sternberg said. "I felt like I was being forced to play a game."

Such a situation would not arise if all lecture classes had the CR/D/F option. As Meeske said, "If it's available in all courses, any negative effects would be diluted." Furthermore, students would be taking more classes outside their major that interested them, so there would be fewer total "negative effects." Seminars and other discussion-based classes would be exempted from the CR/D/F option, since the quality of discourse could suffer. If departments stipulated that majors couldn't apply marks of CR toward graduation requirements, then the only students who would be affected by a change in policy would be non-majors. And most Yale students' post-graduation plans would keep them from taking too many classes CR/D/F.

This is how Oberlin's and Brown's more liberal pass/fail options have played out. Ac-cording to Mark Nickel, director of the Brown News Service, approximately 85 percent of courses taken satisfactory/no credit are outside students' majors. David Hershiser, Oberlin's associate dean of student academic affairs, said, "[The pass/fail option] is basically not used that much. Students are fairly conservative about it; they tend to want grades." Both men said that their respective schools' faculty strongly support the policy.

My sister matriculated at Oberlin in 1993. That September, I attended the Oberlin dean's speech to the freshman class, entitled, "Take advantage. Take risks. And take science." Thanks to Oberlin's pass/fail policy, these were not just empty catch-phrases. If the Yale faculty instituted a system similar to Oberlin and Brown's, even one less broad, the "acade-mic experimentation" touted in the Blue Book would no longer be an empty catch-phrase.

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