The Vice-Chancellor of Newchange revealed today that he has had to invite one of our most distinguished and long-standing professors to resign from his Chair at Newchange, or 'be sacked'. This sorry state of affairs, VC von Crunnderat commented, came about following 'a virtual tsunami of complaints' from disgruntled students formerly registered on the BSc in Experimental Economics from 1975 to the present day. What was the cause of such complaints? As the VC explained to Newchange News, "the vast majority of students [registered on that programme] were awarded 57 per cent - around 99% to be clear. As the students commented to me, though they received a convincing lower second, the fact that thousands of students had attained the same mark, was not at all convincing - rather it was completely and utterly worrisome".
Former students on the programme had become suspicious and alert to possible academic skulldugery when joining the Newchange Experimental Economics Alumni pages - a website which asks for a wide variety of information, including the precise mark attained overall in the BSc. As one student explains (Mark, graduating in 1999), "It was really weird - though originally I had been on course for first class honours, I didn't really question only getting a lower second - I thought I must have really f****d up in the examinations in the final year. But when I saw that thousands of other students received 57%, I started to wonder. "Another student, (Greg, graduating in 1990) commented, "Sure, I'd been taking, like a truck-load of mind-altering drugs during me degree, but I think me mind were altered beautifully like - in concert with the spirit of the BSc in Experimo-Economics - gettin' a 57% grade were just not where I thought I'd be at and it wasn't where I wanted to be - it's like well bad, don't you think? And I don't think I'd be the loser I am today had it not been for the 57% - I mean, I am a loser - you can see that right?".
Upon receiving the hundredth complaint, the VC called a meeting with the Professor (whom, for legal reasons, cannot be named here) requesting an explanation for the extraordinary clustering of marks at 57% on the BSc in Experimental Economics. According to the Professor (who, for legal reasons, cannot be named here), who kindly also spoke to us, the clustering of marks around 57% could very simply be explained by reference to his research and the programme upon which these students were registered: "I wanted to investigate the impact of awarding exactly the same grade to 99% of students irrespective of merit - what would happen to those who were clearly brilliant, but were awarded pretty mediocre marks; and what would happen to the 1% awarded a double first, even when their work very clearly demanded a fail? Quite simply, I wanted to see what the purpose and causal effect of the marking scheme was. "
According to the Professor (whom, for legal reasons, cannot be named here), who was about to publish his "extraordinary" findings, the results of the research are "extraordinary" and certain to lead to a revolution in the manner by which higher educational establishments assess students in the future: "my research indicates that the mark that students attain has little, if any, impact upon their future career options - indeed in some cases, I contacted students after a few years to amend their marks from a 2:2 to a really quite sparkling first classification - that also had little impact on their career prospects. To cut to the chase: if they are good, they are good; if they are academically useless, and academic merit is required, it will soon rise to the surface that the student in question is indeed, academically useless."
Both the Professor (whom, for legal reasons, cannot be named here) and the V-C's Department are currently consulting with their own teams of lawyers. The Professor (whom, for legal reasons, cannot be named here) refuses to step down from his Chair, seeks to rely upon the fact that when students registered for the BSc in Experimental Economics they took the risk that their results would be assessed in the "spirit of such a programme" (alongside his findings that the results had no deleterious results on their future careers/aspirations). Further details as to the legal wrangle currently in motion will be posted on this site.
Former students on the programme had become suspicious and alert to possible academic skulldugery when joining the Newchange Experimental Economics Alumni pages - a website which asks for a wide variety of information, including the precise mark attained overall in the BSc. As one student explains (Mark, graduating in 1999), "It was really weird - though originally I had been on course for first class honours, I didn't really question only getting a lower second - I thought I must have really f****d up in the examinations in the final year. But when I saw that thousands of other students received 57%, I started to wonder. "Another student, (Greg, graduating in 1990) commented, "Sure, I'd been taking, like a truck-load of mind-altering drugs during me degree, but I think me mind were altered beautifully like - in concert with the spirit of the BSc in Experimo-Economics - gettin' a 57% grade were just not where I thought I'd be at and it wasn't where I wanted to be - it's like well bad, don't you think? And I don't think I'd be the loser I am today had it not been for the 57% - I mean, I am a loser - you can see that right?".
Upon receiving the hundredth complaint, the VC called a meeting with the Professor (whom, for legal reasons, cannot be named here) requesting an explanation for the extraordinary clustering of marks at 57% on the BSc in Experimental Economics. According to the Professor (who, for legal reasons, cannot be named here), who kindly also spoke to us, the clustering of marks around 57% could very simply be explained by reference to his research and the programme upon which these students were registered: "I wanted to investigate the impact of awarding exactly the same grade to 99% of students irrespective of merit - what would happen to those who were clearly brilliant, but were awarded pretty mediocre marks; and what would happen to the 1% awarded a double first, even when their work very clearly demanded a fail? Quite simply, I wanted to see what the purpose and causal effect of the marking scheme was. "
According to the Professor (whom, for legal reasons, cannot be named here), who was about to publish his "extraordinary" findings, the results of the research are "extraordinary" and certain to lead to a revolution in the manner by which higher educational establishments assess students in the future: "my research indicates that the mark that students attain has little, if any, impact upon their future career options - indeed in some cases, I contacted students after a few years to amend their marks from a 2:2 to a really quite sparkling first classification - that also had little impact on their career prospects. To cut to the chase: if they are good, they are good; if they are academically useless, and academic merit is required, it will soon rise to the surface that the student in question is indeed, academically useless."
Both the Professor (whom, for legal reasons, cannot be named here) and the V-C's Department are currently consulting with their own teams of lawyers. The Professor (whom, for legal reasons, cannot be named here) refuses to step down from his Chair, seeks to rely upon the fact that when students registered for the BSc in Experimental Economics they took the risk that their results would be assessed in the "spirit of such a programme" (alongside his findings that the results had no deleterious results on their future careers/aspirations). Further details as to the legal wrangle currently in motion will be posted on this site.
No comments:
Post a Comment