Stand For Excellence, Integrity Gets Professors Fired
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
September 2, 2004
(AgapePress) - Two science professors' have lost their jobs at a historically black college in South Carolina over their refusal to implement "effort-based grading."Benedict College, a liberal arts institution in downtown Columbia, has fired non-tenured professors Milwood Motley and Larry Williams for insubordination because they rejected the school's "Success Equals Effort" or "SEE" policy.
Under that policy, freshmen at Benedict are awarded 60 percent of their grades based on effort, and the rest on their work's academic quality. Sophomore students are awarded 50 percent of their grades based on effort, and the rest on their work's academic quality. Only during their junior and senior years are students judged strictly on their actual academic performance.
Benedict's President David Swinton implemented the SEE policy at the historically black private college in the 2003-04 school year. The administrator is quoted in the Columbia newspaper The State as saying that, in his view, students should be allowed to improve academically over time, and the school should focus more on "where they are at when they graduate, not where they are when they get here."
But Motley feels the SEE guidelines compromise the college's integrity and do a disservice to its students. Under the policy, the former Benedict instructor says he would have been forced to award a "C" grade to an introductory biology student who had turned in all of his assignments but failed every one of his exams. But the professor says his and Dr. Williams' concerns about the "Success Equals Effort" policy were disregarded by school administrators, even though compliance would have meant going against their best instincts and principles as educators.
"Both of us believe, as do most of our colleagues at Benedict College for that matter, that a student has to learn," Motley says. "Trying to learn is not sufficient. A student has to learn, and to pass a student who has not learned is simply doing nothing more than setting a student up for failure later on."
And Motley adds that he and Williams were not the only faculty members at Benedict College who had negative sentiments about the school's "SEE" directive. He notes, "Even though just two faculty members got fired because of this policy, I think it's important to add that the overwhelming majority of the faculty at Benedict College oppose it. Even those who are complying with the policy really can't stand it."
This past spring, Motley and Williams defied the school's SEE policy and awarded their students grades strictly on academic performance. Although they were told us to go back and recalculate the grades, the educators refused, and in early June both were informed by letter that they were fired.
Motley appealed his termination, and a faculty grievance committee recommended his reinstatement. However, President Swinton overruled their decision. The American Association of University Professors is conducting an investigation of Williams' and Motley's cases to determine whether the firings constitute a violation of their academic freedom.
