A group of department chairs plan to meet Nov. 18 to discuss taking down the grade distribution information available on the Central Michigan University Portal.

“I simply need to talk to other chairs about how they feel and how they think we can push forward our goals,” said Psychology Chairman Hajime Otani. “I’m not looking for a concrete outcome yet. I just want to feel the pulse of the other chairs and see how they feel.”

Students can click “Academics” on Portal, then “Grade Distribution Reports for Spring 2009” to find grades distributed by class and instructor.

Dean of Students Bruce Roscoe said he supports the student desire to have the grades online. Grade distributions were previously available via hard copy in the Charles V. Park Library.

“Students are making the case that they’re accustomed to gathering info electronically rather than by hard copy,” Roscoe said. “I support students having access to the information. It makes sense to have it available.”

The Council of Chairs voted Oct. 21 to pass a resolution to remove the information from the CMU Portal. As a result, a memo was sent to Roscoe on the matter.

“My understanding is that the provost will wait (to make a decision) until after further discussion by the (Student Government Association) and the Council of Chairs,” Roscoe said.

A ‘reasonable request’

SGA President Jason Nichol is hopeful the grade distribution remains available.

“I think it’s a reasonable request,” the Mount Pleasant senior said. “The potential benefit to students greatly outweighs any possible harms.”

Nichol said he believes the chairs need more support internally.

Approximately 15 chairs voted on the memo out of 37 total departments on campus.

“I’d like to see them take a more widespread stance,” Nichol said. “Not even a majority of the chairs voted. However, we are trying to remain sensitive to the opinion of all parties affected.”

Roscoe thinks more support within the Council of Chairs would give the SGA more to think about — it would make a stronger argument for students to listen to.

However, Otani feels the non-voting chairs support taking the grades down.

“I can only wish for more participation, but I never got the sense after sending the memo that (non-voting members) weren’t supportive,” he said.

Chairs are afraid that students will sign up for the easiest classes, which will pressure the entire faculty to go easy on students.

This is nothing more than a weak attempt to deflect judgment on the faculty’s teaching methods, keeping students in the dark on what classes are like with certain teachers.

The department chairs need to worry about maintaining quality teachers, not how grade distributions will affect registration for classes.

Access to grade distribution is already easy, thanks to the Internet. The University of Indiana allows its students to be specific when checking grade distribution, breaking it down by individual professors and certain semesters. Pickaprof.com allows users to chronicle how professors at a variety of universities grade their students. Since grade distribution is public record, everyone has access to them.

But certain department chairs don’t want students looking these records up and are making sweeping generalizations about the easy access to grade distributions. The department of psychology chairman Hajime Otani fears that making the records easier to navigate through will cause students to “shop around” for easy classes, and that academic standards at CMU won’t be met.

If that’s the case, there’s a serious problem with the faculty at CMU.

All professors should be held to the same standard when it comes to teaching, which apparently is not happening at CMU. Students wouldn’t be able to shop around for easy teachers if the entire faculty had a universal scale for grading. But instead, there is a significant amount of disparity among professors on how grades are given out. The fear of grade distribution on Portal simply shows how inconsistent the faculty is when viewed as a whole.

Grade distribution is public record, therefore deflating any argument faculty may have. Even if the link was taken down, any student could go into the campus library and find out how harsh professors grade their students.

But most of the time, students don’t even concern themselves with looking up the records. Professors’ classes fill up based on reputation and word of mouth. An instructor’s ratings on Ratemyprofessor.com can make or break the enrollment in their classes.

If department chairs are really worried about students taking easy classes, they need to come down on lenient professors not up to standard instead of trying to deter students from looking up the records.

Professors on campus can’t hide facts, nor can they try to bury them.

Grade distribution allows students to view the grades professors awarded students in past semesters.

The resolution was voted on by approximately 15 members of the Council of Chairs with one dissenting vote, said Hajime Otani, department psychology chairman.

“(The council) agreed that posting of this information is not very helpful to what we want to do,” he said. “We want students to look at class descriptions and select based on what they need to learn, not on how many ‘A’s and ‘E’s are given out.”

Students can access grades from spring 2009 by logging into CMU Portal and clicking “Grade Distribution Reports for Spring 2009” under “Academics.”

The resolution made by the Council of Chairs provided four points.

“First, the practice is not consistent with raising or maintaining academic standards, because there is potential for shopping around for easy classes,” Otani said.

The council is concerned about the danger of grade inflation, the impression that classes are consumer goods and increased pressure on professors to make their classes easier. Finally, the faculty was not consulted when grade distribution was made available, he said.

Approval of the resolution means the council will send a letter to Interim Provost Gary Shapiro and Dean of Students Bruce Roscoe, Otani said.

Roscoe said he has not reviewed the letter.

“The provost and I will talk about this and probably try to gather some data, at which point we will have a position,” he said.

Some members of the council believe the necessary information is already available.

“It is useful for students to have information about classes before they enroll,” said Mary Senter, professor of sociology, anthropology and social work. “That is why the master course syllabi are available to students and why descriptions of courses are in the Bulletin.”

Continued support

Interim journalism department chairman Tim Boudreau voted against the resolution.

“I support the notion of a free flow of information. It would be a bit hypocritical of me to restrict the flow of this information,” said Boudreau, who teaches JRN 404: Law of Mass Communication. “It won’t prevent students from accessing this information because it’s already available elsewhere.”

The Student Government Association, who made grade distribution available on the Portal, remains in support of keeping it online. Grade distribution also can be found on CDs the Charles V. Park Library.

“We’re increasing transparency and providing students with more information for their academic experience,” said SGA Vice President Brittany Mouzourakis.

Having the information available online provides a better alternative to RateMyProfessor.com, as the site is inherently biased because it generally attracts outliers, the Garden City senior said.

“We want to provide the most information possible,” she said.

But some still do not know about it. The application can be found on the Central Michigan University Portal.

“It’s just not something we spend a lot of time marketing,” said Duane Kleinhardt, manager of IT Communications.

Many students are unaware of the lingering link on their CMU Portal.

“It’s a Web site everyone can configure to keep track of documents, links and other info that they can share with others for collaborative purposes,” Kleinhardt said.

My Site has been functioning since 2006, when the platform, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, was purchased.

Sarah Bendele, coordinator and project manager Of the Office of Information and Technology, said any person with a global ID at CMU automatically has one.

There is more than 20,000 users with My Sites, said Eric Bellmore, lead web developer and programmer of OIT.

The intent is to give all CMU students, faculty and staff a place to store their information online and be able to access it from anywhere, he said.

“I’ve never clicked on the link,” said Brighton sophomore Mike Ayaub.

Personalization

Bellmore said OIT will address promotion issues in the near future.

My Site has yet to be personalized by the OIT, but a CMU theme will be added eventually.

“If I had known about My Site and it was as publicized as Blackboard, I definitely would have checked it out,” Ayaub said.

There is still a lot of marketing to do before students, staff and faculty understand the value in the My Site concept, Bellmore said.

“Faculty doesn’t make it known that there are other applications on the portal that are functional and helpful,” Ayaub said.

My Site has several features that can be utilized. Such features include blogging, Wikis, document libraries, photo albums, calendars and custom lists. There are privacy options as well.

Users have the ability to make certain parts of My Site public, Bendele said.

Administrative staff and faculty may use My Site to store large files or documents, while students can process class projects with their group members.

“It’s a way to share information with other people,” Kleinhardt said.

The Student Government Association wants to provide a way to do that.

A new link was added to the Central Michigan University Portal at cmich.edu, which allows students to view a grade distribution for the spring 2009 semester and includes every professor on campus, said SGA President Jason Nichol.

“We want to increase transparency between students and their professors,” the Mount Pleasant senior said. “This gives students more purchasing power when selecting which professors they will have.”

To view the grade distribution, students can go the portal, click Academics and then on Grade Distribution Reports for Spring 2009, under the General Academics category.

“We’re using this as momentum for our big project this year, which is getting (student opinion surveys) forms online,” Nichol said.

In the open

Grades distributions are available on CDs in Charles V. Park Library, but SGA Vice President Brittany Mouzourakis feels this is not enough.

“The resources are already available, but in a mostly unusable medium,” the Garden City senior said. “This is also more effective than other reviews because they are mostly outliers.”

Nichol said he also would like to have the SOS rating scores available online for students to view as soon as possible.

“It really depends on a number of things, including deciding which interface we are going to use,” Nichol said.

The SGA is aiming for the beginning of the spring semester as a desired target day, Nichol said.

Nichol anticipated there would be more resistance to the plan, but has not really seen any.

Tim Brannan, president of the Faculty Association, said there is no prevailing opinion on the SOS forms moving online one way or the other.

Nichol and Mouzourakis will attend a meeting with university administrators to discuss other options to allow students to view students’ opinions of their forum instructors, as well as instituting a rating system.

“We are working with our consultants to exactly determine what caused the Portal to go down,” said Duane Kleinhardt, Manager of IT Communications and mediated service repair.

He said IT uses Microsoft software and he does not know if the problem was caused by IT or Microsoft.

Central Michigan University is no different. But despite frequent tests, its system has had very limited use for actual emergencies. In fact, it has only been used once.

In spring 2008, CMU developed Central Alert, which has irritated some students.

Stockbridge freshman Ron Cosper is one who said there is an excessive number of tests.

“I think the Central Alert system is good,” Cosper said. “But there are too many tests. I’ll be home during the weekend and get a message at 9 in the morning. It’s annoying getting alerts when I’m nowhere near Central.”

However, not all students think the frequent testing is bad. Troy sophomore Richard Yoon said the frequent tests are beneficial.

“The testing is good,” he said. “It helps prepare people for when there is an actual emergency.”

Regardless of frequent monthly testing, Director of Public Relations Steve Smith said there are rarely any issues.

“We really haven’t received a lot of complaints about the system,” Smith said.

If students feel the system is not beneficial, they can remove themselves from the alert list by going through the CMU Portal.

“Students can remove themselves from the list basically by using the same steps that they used to sign up,” Smith said.

Students can log on to the Portal, go to University Services and then to Emergency Information, under the Health and Safety category.

Even with the annoyance of the monthly tests, Smith recommends everyone to sign up.

“It’s a very effective way to communicate,” Smith said. “I would encourage that everyone take a look and sign up.”