CUE Report: Proposals

CUE REPORT:  PROPOSALS                                     Sections 3-8
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3.  WRITING AND CRITICAL THINKING
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According to Courses and Degrees, the "purpose of the writing
requirement is to promote effective communication by ensuring that every
undergraduate can write clear and effective English prose. Words are the
vehicles for thought and clear thinking requires facility in writing and
speech." Since 1987, Stanford has had a two-tier writing requirement:
students who score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Test in English
(approximately one-third of the first-year class) must take one course
in composition; others take a two-course sequence. These courses either
are in the Writing and Critical Thinking (WCT) program, administered by
the English department, or are special sections of three Cultures,
Ideas, and Values tracks (Structured Liberal Education, Literature and
Fine Arts, and History 1-2-3).

In 1993-94, the WCT program was reviewed by a committee appointed by the
dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences and chaired by Professor
Nancy Kollmann. CUE cooperated with the review committee, discussed both
its initial charge and its final report, and fully endorses its
recommendations, which will be presented to the Faculty Senate in
1994-95.

The review committee concluded that the university's current requirement
was necessary and that it should be expanded so that writing might play
a role in students' experience beyond their first year. We are convinced
that one learns good writing and communication skills by practicing them
regularly; moreover, writing is a powerful tool in learning. Therefore,
students should be given the opportunity to write often, in different
disciplines and in formats as diverse as research papers, laboratory
reports, and the preparation of oral presentations. Students learn to
think more clearly by revising their written work. Here the committee
followed the formulation of the Writing and Critical Thinking program,
which argues that revision is not simply correcting mistakes but "re-
visioning" a paper-reorganizing, developing the argument on a deeper
level, even starting again from scratch if need be. Students master new
material more deeply and are able to use it more effectively if they
have written about it. Thus, writing (with a revising component) should
be a more integral part of undergraduate education at Stanford.

To accomplish these goals, we recommend the following.

First, the current WCT requirement should be retained. The subject
matter of the courses offered within the WCT program should have a
somewhat broader range, designed to appeal to the interests of a variety
of students. If possible, teaching assistants should be advanced
graduate students from several departments. The WCT lecturers, who
provide the program with expertise and continuity, should remain the
core of the instructional staff. Their status should be improved and
their positions professionalized.

Second, the university should expand the writing requirement so that
each department or degree-granting program has at least one writing-
intensive course, which its majors are required to pass. It is important
that students have experience writing in the fields in which they are
developing knowledge and expertise. (As a corollary, students who
double-major will have to take two such courses.)

This recommendation extends the Writing Across the Curriculum program in
which sixteen departments of the School of Humanities and Sciences
currently participate. In order for the program to include all
departments, it will be necessary to provide the resources necessary to
train teaching assistants and provide support for faculty so that they
can work with students on their writing. The Center for Teaching and
Learning, which has a proven record of helping students and faculty in
these matters, can serve as a resource.

Third, there should be some means of coordinating the various components
of Stanford's writing requirement. We suggest the creation of an
advisory board for writing programs at Stanford. The board should be
appointed by the Committee on Undergraduate Study from faculty in
various departments and schools, with the director of WCT, the senior
lecturer in charge of writing pedagogy, and the director of the CTL as
ex officio members.

Fourth, we should be able to assess how well the writing requirement
works and how it might be improved. Focus groups of students, assembled
at the end of their first year and again three years later, would
provide valuable information and suggestions about the program.
Questions about writing on the Senior Survey would record the views of a
larger sample. We urge the advisory board to consider other means of
evaluating student writing, including the creation of writing portfolios
or the systematic examination of written work.

Fifth, the university should provide instruction in oral communication.
According to Courses and Degrees, "all instructors expect that students
will express themselves in speech and writing," but relatively little is
now being done to help students learn how to speak clearly and
effectively. Those courses on public speaking that do exist, at the
Center for Teaching and Learning and in the School of Engineering, seem
to be popular and effective. We recommend that these programs be
expanded and that other ways of improving oral communication be examined
and, if appropriate, adopted.



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4.  THE LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
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"The Language Requirement ensures that every student gains a basic
familiarity with a foreign language. Foreign language study extends the
student's range of knowledge and expression in significant ways,
providing access to materials and cultures that otherwise would be out
of reach" (Courses and Degrees, p. 10). CUE encountered few people who
doubted the second proposition and no one who believed the first.
Stanford's language requirement is one of the weakest among our peer
institutions. Since 1982, students who are not native speakers of
another language have been able to fulfill the university's requirement
(certain majors have more rigorous requirements) in one of three ways:
one year of college instruction, an achievement test, or three years of
high school instruction. Last year, 940 first-year students fulfilled
their requirement with high school courses, 273 were native speakers of
another language, and 256 passed the achievement test. Only 137,
therefore, were required to take additional language courses. (See
Appendix 3, Table 1.)

CUE believes that three years of high school instruction are not
sufficient to ensure that our students have "basic familiarity with a
foreign language." There is compelling evidence that it is rarely
possible to learn how to use a language in these three years. Moreover,
by accepting high school instruction as sufficient, we tell our students
that they can be "finished with" language study before entering the
university-which is exactly the wrong signal to be sending to them and
to their high schools.

There are, we believe, at least five compelling reasons to encourage our
students to develop competence in a foreign language. First, in a
shrinking and increasingly interdependent world, competence in a foreign
language improves the ability of individuals to function effectively as
citizens and productive members of the global community. Second, foreign
language competency is of immediate use to Americans who live in and/or
work with multicultural communities throughout the United States,
especially in California. Third, knowledge of a foreign language is a
significant component of a humanistic education. Foreign language study
provides access to foreign cultures, histories, and literatures. It
brings insights into the nature of culture, fostering tolerance and a
greater appreciation of differences and similarities. Fourth, foreign
language study promotes greater understanding of the nature of language,
its structure and its role in the development of cognition. And fifth,
one's ability to understand and write the English language improves with
the study of a foreign language.

We recommend, therefore, that the university language requirement be
strengthened. Beginning in 1995-96, entering students should be required
to complete one year of college language instruction or to pass a
proficiency examination, which will be designed by the foreign language
departments. Obviously an important first step in this process is to
define what proficiency in various languages means and to determine the
ways in which it can be demonstrated.

In order to assess the effectiveness of language instruction and to
ensure that the two ways of meeting the requirement are equivalent, a
sample of those who fulfill the requirement with course work will also
be asked to take the examination.

Some will object that a year of study is insufficient to enable students
to speak a language fluently or to be able to read difficult texts. For
most students, this will certainly be true. Nevertheless, a year of
university instruction will provide the foundation upon which a mastery
of the language can be built.

An expansion of the requirement is a necessary but not sufficient means
to increase the centrality of language learning at Stanford. Equally
important will be a series of steps to encourage the sustained learning
and diverse use of foreign languages beyond the language and literature
departments, comparable to the diffusion of writing instruction across
the curriculum. The overseas studies program is an obvious impetus to
language study; more should be done to make study abroad possible and to
strengthen its language component. Students should also be encouraged to
use foreign languages in their course work and in research projects. As
we will argue later in our report, students should have the option of
taking a minor, in which language study might be combined with other
course work, for example, in subjects such as Asian or African studies.
We will also recommend changing the format of the undergraduate
transcript so that special achievements, such as advanced language
study, can be prominently displayed.

Finally, in order to encourage and improve language teaching and
learning at Stanford, we recommend the creation of a language center,
which is now being considered by the School of Humanities and Sciences.
This center would coordinate and assess formal language instruction,
encourage efforts to promote language study across the curriculum, and
take the lead in developing new techniques and technologies for language
learning.

Strengthening the language requirement, even to a minimum level of
proficiency, will take additional resources, as will some of the other
measures we propose. Until now, as a visiting committee on language
instruction at Stanford pointed out in 1992, we have provided language
study to our students "on the cheap." It is time to recognize that in
order to live up to our claim to be an international and multicultural
institution, we must be prepared to make language study a more effective
and visible part of our undergraduate program.



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5.  BREADTH REQUIREMENTS:  THE SCIENCE
    AND HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES CORES
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The breadth requirements share many of the goals of undergraduate
education-to help students to think clearly and critically, to acquaint
them with useful, interesting, and aesthetically pleasing subjects, and
to prepare them for an effective public and private life. The breadth
requirements' particular role in the curriculum is to make students
aware of different ways to analyze material, organize knowledge, and
imagine the world. This means not only being introduced to a variety of
subjects, but also learning how different disciplines define problems,
gather evidence, test hypotheses, and represent their objects of study.

While almost everyone would accept these goals-few people are prepared
to take a stand against breadth-there is no agreement about how
curricular breadth can best be achieved. Two alternative ways of
providing breadth suggest the range of choices: in one, the university
specifies a set of categories, sometimes defined by subject matter, more
often by modes of thought, and then allows students to select from a
limited number of courses within each; in the other, the university
defines a few broad subjects and allows students to take whatever
courses they wish within each one. The advantages and disadvantages of
the two systems are clear enough: the first imposes order, but limits
choice; the second allows considerable choice, but provides little
guidance.

Stanford's current system of "distribution requirements" was introduced
in 1980 and has been revised several times since, most recently in
November 1990. It seems to combine elements of both alternatives; we
have defined nine categories, within which students may choose from a
very large number of courses. As it now stands, the requirement consists
of the following:

     *  The Cultures Core (Areas 1, 2, 3): A three-quarter sequence in
        Cultures, Ideas, and Values, plus a course in World Cultures and
        one in American Cultures

     *  The Science Core (Areas 4, 5, 6): One course each in
        Mathematical Sciences, in Natural Sciences, and in Technology
        and Applied Sciences

     *  The Humanities and Social Sciences Core (Areas 7, 8, 9): one
        course in Literature and the Fine Arts, one in Philosophical,
        Social, and Religious Thought, and one in Social and Behavioral
        Sciences

In addition, students must fulfill a Gender Studies requirement by
taking one course in Areas 2-9 that has been designated as dealing with
gender issues.

The total number of courses needed to fulfill the distribution
requirements (including CIV) is eleven, which might amount to 55 units-
almost one-third of the total needed for graduation.

The original legislation intended that courses fulfilling a distribution
requirement should meet an elaborate set of criteria and be certified by
a subcommittee of the Committee on Undergraduate Studies. In practice,
almost every course submitted is eventually approved. The result can be
seen in the eight closely printed, double-columned pages in Courses and
Degrees, 1993-94, that list the courses for various areas. A quick look
at this list suggests the extraordinary range of courses that fulfill
distribution requirements: Some are introductory courses like
"Elementary Economics," some fairly specialized ones like "Twentieth-
Century German History," both of which fulfill Area 9, Social and
Behavioral Sciences; some cover a broad subject, like "Middle East, 570-
1718," whereas some are more narrowly focused, like "Archaeology and
Education at Zuni Pueblo," both of which fulfill Area 2, World Cultures.
Moreover, there is a wide range in the number of courses available in
the various categories. For example, Area 6, Technology and Applied
Sciences, lists 24 courses, while Area 7, Literature and the Fine Arts,
lists 105, including virtually all the offerings in some departments. We
hope that when they consider the alternatives we propose, our readers
will keep in mind the realities of the current system as represented by
this bewildering array of courses.

The Commission's subcommittee on the breadth requirements spent a great
deal of time talking to students about their experiences with the
current system of distribution requirements (DRs). All but a small
minority acknowledge the value of requiring some breadth: in a poll
conducted by the ASSU in the spring of 1993-94, only 7 percent opposed
distribution requirements of any kind. There is, however, widespread
discontent with the present system, which only about one-third of those
polled would like to retain. In focus groups and various dorm meetings,
students complained that the requirements seem elaborate and arbitrary.
("We need a better explanation of why there is this system. I think we
have just accepted it without questioning it.") They do not understand
the reasons for particular categories of courses and the reasons why
some courses count, while others do not. ("I don't understand the level
of classes that fit into the DRs.") We had the strong impression that
many students fulfill the requirements simply because they are there,
not because the students understand or accept their purpose. Instead of
stimulating reflection and encouraging intellectual breadth, the
requirements become hurdles to be jumped and then forgotten. This not
only has unfortunate consequences for individual courses, but also
undermines the legitimacy of requirements per se.

There is no question that the distribution requirements encourage
students to take many valuable courses that they find instructive and
stimulating. Often these courses introduce them to material that they
would not have encountered on their own. And yet it is difficult to
conclude that the system as a whole is working as it should. Indeed,
there is some reason to fear that, after a quarter century of revisions
and reforms, our system of requirements resembles the one described by
The Study of Education at Stanford  in 1968, a system that "leaves the
teacher and the student with the worst elements of two attractive but
competing ideals: from the ideal of general education it leaves
prescription in form but not prescription in substance; from the ideal
of freedom to teach and to learn it leaves incoherence of purpose." (The
Study of Education at Stanford: Report to the University, vol. 2,
Undergraduate Education (1968), p. 10.)

We believe that we should be able to explain and justify whatever we
require. We should also insist that students take these requirements
seriously. We recommend, therefore, that students no longer be allowed
to use the Credit-No credit (Cr-NC) option for courses that fulfill
their breadth requirements.

Most considerations of breadth requirements begin by trying to divide
the curriculum into pieces that every student should sample. But this
ignores the fact that "breadth" does not mean the same thing for all
disciplines or for all students. For example, students in the humanities
and social sciences, who have a great many electives, usually take a
fairly broad range of courses. For them, breadth means being required to
learn something about science, mathematics, and technology. As we will
argue, providing this kind of breadth poses different curricular
problems than the need to teach scientists or engineers about the
humanities and social sciences. In what follows, therefore, we consider
the current cores separately and try to keep in mind the particular
needs they are designed to serve.


--THE SCIENCE CORE
No one doubts the fundamental importance of science, mathematics, and
technology for every aspect of modern society. But at the same time that
these subjects have become increasingly important for all of us, they
have become more specialized and therefore less accessible to those who
do not study them full time. "The specialization of science," Robert
Oppenheimer wrote in 1954, "is an inevitable accompaniment of progress-
yet it is full of dangers and it is cruelly wasteful since so much that
is beautiful and enlightening is cut off from most of the world." Being
cut off from scientific knowledge undermines the nonscientist's ability
to understand important aspects of our culture and to act as a
responsible citizen. Moreover, as the literary critic Lionel Trilling
pointed out in his Jefferson Lecture of 1972, "this exclusion of most of
us from the mode of thought which is habitually said to be the
characteristic achievement of the modern age is bound to be experienced
as a wound given to our intellectual self-esteem." (Oppenheimer quoted
in Jaroslav Pelikan, The Idea of the University: A Reexamination (New
Haven and London, 1992), p. 98. Lionel Trilling, Mind in the Modern
World (New York, 1972), p. 14.)

Stanford's current distribution requirements are one example of this
larger cultural problem. At present, few nonscientists are drawn to the
kinds of courses required for science majors; instead they usually
fulfill Areas 4, 5, and 6 with courses specifically designed to attract
nonspecialists. Whatever their other merits, many of these courses do
not teach students what it means to think scientifically. Too few are
both rigorously scientific and generally accessible. Indeed, we became
convinced that these three areas were the weakest link in the current
system, the ones that students were most likely to view cynically and to
try to fulfill as effortlessly as possible.

We believe that Stanford has a special responsibility and an unusual
opportunity to devise ways of teaching science to nonscientists. While
we do not underestimate the intellectual difficulties that will have to
be resolved or the institutional resources that will be necessary, we
are convinced that the potential advantages make the attempt worthwhile,
both for our own students and as a model solution to a ubiquitous
problem.

We recommend the creation of a new three-quarter sequence, tentatively
titled "Introduction to the Natural Sciences, Quantitative Analysis, and
Technology," through which students could fulfill the current
requirements included in Areas 4, 5, and 6.

This course would treat in a significant way the following themes:

     *  Problem solving-Much of the written work would be "problem
        sets," with a strong emphasis on clear writing.

     *  Experimental work-There would be some kind of laboratory, in
        which there would be quantitative and observational work.
        Questions of the difficulty in making measurements and assessing
        their accuracy and reproducibility should be addressed.

     *  Technology-Students would learn basic issues in engineering and
        how engineering differs from science.

     *  Computer literacy, including numerical and graphical work (see
        the recommendations in Chapter 10).

     *  Elements of probability and statistics.

To provide a context for these themes, we would expect the course to
include a study of the following: the interplay between the environment
and biological systems, the molecular basis for living and nonliving
things, the nature of energy in the physical world, the character of
physical law, and the concepts of symmetry, growth, orders of magnitude,
and the effects of scale.

The course would be organized into individual tracks with different
emphases on such particular problems as, for example, disasters, global
climate change, biological diversity, natural resources, how things
work, or biological and physical change.

We recognize that the creation of this course will require the
commitment and enthusiasm of a group of faculty. But we want to
emphasize that to become part of our requirements, the course must have
broadly based support among the faculty and a clear, long-term claim on
institutional resources. If the course depends on the participation of a
few individuals and short-term financial support, it will prove as
ephemeral as have previous experiments of this sort.

If and when this course is available, Areas 4, 5, and 6 would be
replaced by a science requirement that could be fulfilled in either of
two ways:

     1.  The new three-quarter sequence of "Introduction to the Natural
         Sciences, Quantitative Analysis, and Technology," or

     2.  Any three courses (with at least one quarter of lab) that can
         be used to fulfill the major in a natural science department.

If a course such as we propose turns out to be impossible to create, we
then urge the appropriate faculty committee to take a much more active
role in ensuring that all the courses in Areas 4, 5, and 6 are rigorous
efforts to promote scientific, mathematical, and technological literacy
among nonmajors.


--THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES CORE
The curricular problems in the Humanities and Social Sciences Core
(Areas 7, 8, and 9) are significantly different from those in the
Science Core. If the latter has too few courses, the former has too
many. This is because the areas in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Core-Literature and the Fine Arts, Philosophical, Social, and Religious
Thought, and Social and Behavioral Sciences-are so broadly defined that
they include extremely diverse collections of courses, many of which
appear to overlap with the five-course Cultures Core. When one looks at
the list of courses that can fulfill Areas 7, 8, and 9, it is not
surprising that many students have trouble understanding the rationale
for these requirements.

It is also important to bear in mind that because students majoring in
the humanities or social sciences will fulfill Areas 7, 8, and 9 without
difficulty, those most directly affected by these requirements are
students majoring in science or engineering, who usually have the fewest
electives with which to pursue their particular interests. The net
effect of Areas 7, 8, and 9, therefore, is to limit the choice of some
students without providing much guidance or direction. Indeed, it could
be argued that by forcing students to spread their electives across
three arbitrarily defined areas, the Humanities and Social Sciences Core
legislates superficiality.

As is always the case with breadth requirements, in dealing with Areas
7, 8, and 9, the Commission faced the choice between imposing coherence
and allowing choice. We considered, but finally rejected, the idea of
establishing a set of courses on the humanities and social sciences
comparable to our proposed science and technology sequence. We were
skeptical that such an enterprise was possible and not convinced that it
was necessary. In contrast to Areas 4, 5, and 6, a great many courses in
the humanities and social sciences are both rigorous and accessible to
nonspecialists. It seemed to us better to expand students' choice among
these courses than to impose questionable coherence. We recommend,
therefore, that Areas 7, 8, and 9 be abandoned and that students be
required to take three courses in the humanities or social sciences
outside of their majors. Most courses in these areas could be used to
satisfy the requirement, with a few obvious exceptions, such as
introductory language courses. Students would be further required to
define some thematic connection among these three courses, which would
have to be approved by their advisors.

Some members of the Commission were uneasy about allowing students
totally free choice. They suggested that the three courses used to meet
this requirement should have to include courses from both areas. In
other words, students could not take all humanities or all social
sciences. A majority of the Commission, however, was prepared to leave
the choice open.

In order for our recommendations to work, students will need help from
their advisors, who can use the selection of these courses as an
occasion to talk about their advisees' intellectual interests and
educational goals. Indeed, we hope that the need to talk about these
issues will help make the student-advisor relationship more interesting
and relevant.

To assist students and advisors, Courses and Degrees should suggest
various themes around which the requirements might be organized. For
instance, some students may wish to acquire a preliminary knowledge of a
discipline by taking an introductory course in economics, sociology,
political science, English literature, philosophy, or art. (As we will
discuss in our section on advising, we hope that departments will make
such introductory courses regular parts of their curricula.) Other
students may want to pursue a special interest or build on a particular
experience by combining courses from different departments on a subject
like Asian society, comparative economic development, Mayan
civilization, modernism in art and literature, contemporary European
politics, the ancient world, or ethics and society. We would hope that
faculty members might get together to suggest an array of courses to
meet this requirement, focused on a particular theme such as the
relationship of science and the humanities. For those students who have
a limited number of electives, defining the requirements in this way
should make it easier to study at an overseas campus. And there may be
some students who will wish to use these three courses as the first step
toward the six related courses necessary for a minor.

Allowing students to choose how to fulfill the humanities and social
sciences breadth requirement gives them the ultimate responsibility for
establishing curricular coherence. Coherence, after all, is not some
abstract quality to be imposed from above; rather, as the author of a
recent work on undergraduate education has argued, it is "a power of the
mind to be developed and honed . . . an ability to look, sort, and
connect." (Rudolph H. Weingartner, Undergraduate Education: Goals and
Means (New York, 1992), p. 156.)  We believe that our proposal will
encourage students to develop that ability.



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6.  BREADTH REQUIREMENTS:  THE CULTURES CORE
--------------------------------------------

Courses and Degrees gives two purposes for the distribution
requirements: "to introduce students to a broad range of fields and
areas of study . . . and to help students to be responsible members of
society." This second purpose is most clearly served by the courses in
the Cultures  Core: the three quarters of Cultures, Ideas, and Values,
the courses in World Cultures and American Cultures, and the Gender
Studies requirement.

The goal of creating responsible members of society is well established
in American universities, but the means have changed over time. In 1923,
for example, Stanford introduced a required course, "Problems of
Citizenship," which was replaced twelve years later by "History of
Western Civilization." The cornerstone of Stanford's undergraduate
program for over thirty years, "Western Civ" was essentially a course on
the development of European thought from its classical origins to the
present. It was taught from a common syllabus by some twenty young
instructors, who were appointed and supervised by the history
department. By the late 1960s, the course had begun to lose its cohesion
and sense of purpose. In 1968, The Study of Education at Stanford
recommended its abolition. Twelve years later, a new required course,
"Western Culture," was introduced. Although similar to Western
Civilization in some ways, Western Culture was not a single course but
was taught in several tracks, which shared a "core list" of required and
recommended readings.

Whereas Western Civilization lasted for more than thirty years, Western
Culture survived for fewer than ten. After an intense debate (which was
widely, if often inaccurately, covered by the national media), in 1988
the Faculty Senate replaced the Western Culture requirement with a new
course entitled "Cultures, Ideas, and Values." Like its predecessor, CIV
was composed of tracks. Its common reading was reduced to six works or
authors; in addition, each track was required to include at least one
work each quarter by a woman and one by a person of color, to consider
issues of class, race, and gender, and to study at least one non-
European culture that has influenced American society. Almost as soon as
the debate on CIV was over, the Committee on Undergraduate Studies began
to consider additional requirements, which eventually went into effect
in 1990 as Areas 2 and 3, World and American Cultures, and the Gender
Studies requirement. Although these new requirements overlapped with CIV
in several ways, CIV itself was not discussed in 1990.

The Commission decided that it should view the Cultures Core as a whole.
We began, however, with an intense examination of CIV, which was the
subject of several focus groups, town meetings in the dorms, and
numerous other discussions with faculty and students.

Student opinion on CIV was remarkably clear and consistent. Most agreed
that there should be such a course. "It was a bonding experience," one
student said; "I think it had a lot to do with the small group format."
Another was pleased that CIV "forces people to read a lot of things they
would probably never read in their lifetime." Nevertheless, many
students were critical of the program in practice: according to a poll
taken by the Stanford Daily, 72 percent of students think CIV should be
changed. In almost all of our discussions, the same three criticisms
came up again and again. First, most students believed that the tracks
differed too widely in purpose, work load, and grading policy. Our own
examination of syllabi and grade distributions confirmed this
impression. Second, students thought that the course materials---
especially the non-Western materials-were not well integrated. Rightly
or wrongly, many students viewed CIV as Western Culture with a few token
additions. Third, because the course tries to meet so many different
needs, students found that their reading and consequently the
discussions were sketchy and superficial. There was a general sense of
"overload" among both students and faculty. As one student summarized a
long discussion in his residence, "In trying to do too much, CIV
achieves only few goals. We recommend that all CIV tracks be reevaluated
and revised to meet their original purpose."

Given its disparate origins, organizational structure, and intellectual
ambition, the problems with CIV are not surprising. At present, the
course consists of nine different tracks, spread across several
departments, involving about thirty senior faculty members and another
two dozen or more lecturers. Some of these tracks were specifically
created to meet the new requirement, but several of the largest began as
part of the Western Culture program or had been long-standing
departmental or interdepartmental courses. The Humanities track, for
instance, was once required of all students in the Humanities Special
Programs; the history track started as an introductory European history
course. Neither the supervisory efforts of the Area 1 Committee nor the
common list of six authors or works shared by all the tracks has been
able to provide the kind of cohesion and consistency promised by the
program's founding legislation.

The first question the Commission posed was: Given the apparent problems
in CIV, should the requirement be maintained? We concluded that the
course has a number of valuable functions. It is a significant (and, for
some first-year students, a unique) learning experience, in which
students have the benefit of small group instruction, form a sustained
relationship with a single teacher, and receive invaluable training in
writing, critical analysis, and oral communication. Because we value the
continuity of this experience, we rejected suggestions to divide the
course into three separate quarters on Western, non-Western, and
American cultures. In fact, we regard small group instruction as so
central to the program that we recommend it be increased from at least
two hours per week (as is now mandated) to at least three hours per
week.

Although we recommend that there should be a first-year course modeled
on CIV, we are convinced that the current program must be transformed if
it is to fulfill in practice the first objective articulated in its
founding legislation: "to provide students with the common intellectual
experience of broadening their understanding of ideas and values drawn
from different strands of their own culture, and to increase their
understanding of cultural diversity and the process of cultural
interaction. . . ."

The first problem we confronted was how to provide a "common
intellectual experience." We assumed that it would not be possible to
return to the single-course "Western Civilization" structure; the
course, therefore, would continue to have different tracks, formats, and
approaches.

It is clear that six common works or authors (which are themselves
defined broadly enough to include many possibilities, for example, the
"Hebrew Bible") are totally inadequate. At present, students read
different works at different times and in different ways. For all
practical purposes, the tracks have become different courses.

One possible source of a "common intellectual experience" would be to
increase substantially the common reading, that is, to return to the
"core list" that was supposed to hold the Western Culture tracks
together. But the very existence of a "core list" imposes on the course
a definition of culture that many faculty members do not accept.
Moreover, a core list of any sort necessarily gives to certain works the
kind of privileged status that leads to endless debates about relative
value and appropriate representation. Even if such a core list could be
collectively compiled, it would substantially restrict the number of
faculty members willing and able to teach the course.

If we cannot impose a common reading list, what other sources of
commonality are there?

We propose an answer drawn not from shared subject matter, but from the
common problem of teaching and learning about culture at the end of the
twentieth century. The common intellectual experience of the course,
therefore, would be a self-consciousness about the enterprise itself, an
awareness of the analytical and ideological issues that the study of
culture involves. In order to be sure that this self-consciousness
anchors the course, all the tracks would have to begin and end with the
same readings, which would be designed to encourage both faculty and
students to reflect on the intellectual project they were about to begin
or had just completed. Such readings might be defenses of classic
definitions of culture, such as Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy; or
cultural criticisms, such as Friedrich Nietzsche's Advantages and
Disadvantages of History; or anthropological analyses of culture, such
as James Clifford's essays in The Predicament of Culture. The process of
discussing and agreeing upon these readings would require the faculty to
articulate their goals for the course and exchange ideas about how these
goals might best be reached.

We believe that the best way to clarify CIV's common goals is to return
to its essential purpose, which is to help students acquire an
understanding of culture's historical origins and character. This can be
done by studying any one of several different cultures-European, Asian,
Islamic. Based on a particular example, each track would examine a
common set of themes and problems. Since all cultures develop in time,
each track would include a historical treatment of a cultural tradition;
since cultures have core works or ideas that claim to represent them,
each track would consider some fundamental texts; since cultures must
deal with internal differences, such as gender, status, wealth, and
ethnicity, with values and moral codes, with religious faith and
artistic beauty, each track would consider these issues; since each
culture must have boundaries and must deal with outsiders, each track
would consider how cultures relate to others, and here it would be
necessary to read and compare works from both a European and a non-
European culture; finally, since we are carrying on this study in the
United States, each track must relate the study of its culture to
American culture, either historically or comparatively.

In such a program, we could imagine a course on Asian culture that would
begin with a classic Asian text and end with the great wave of Asian
immigration to North America since 1965; or a course on the origins of
American culture that followed the development of its European and non-
European elements; or a course on European culture that would examine
its relationship to other cultures and especially its problematic
relationship to the New World.

Defined in this way, the course should become the proper forum for a
critical and historically informed discussion of issues of ethnicity,
cultural identity, and political and social values. We believe that it
will perform the function now assigned to Areas 1, 2, and 3 of the
current distribution requirements. We recommend, therefore, that once
the revision of CIV has been completed (which should take place no later
than the fall of 1998), the World and American Cultures requirements
should be abolished.

We recommend that the process for transforming (and, if possible,
renaming) CIV begin at once and that it be placed in the hands of a
design committee composed of faculty members who are prepared to teach
in the new program. Their first task would be to clarify the goals and
establish a common agenda for a new course on culture. In some cases,
this would involve refashioning existing tracks, but we would hope that
new tracks would also be created. These new tracks could begin at once
on an experimental basis. The design committee should also propose a new
and improved system of oversight and assessment, which might include the
sort of midquarter evaluations conducted by the Center for Teaching and
Learning.

The Commission did not reach consensus on the Gender Studies
requirement. Some members believed that this requirement, like the World
and American Cultures requirements, should be folded into a redefined
CIV course. To do otherwise, it was argued, would be to isolate gender
rather than to affirm its central place in any examination of culture.
Others disagreed. They argued that without a special requirement, gender
issues might easily get lost. Moreover, they maintained that our
students ought to be aware of the important work being done in this new
and exciting field. We recommend that the matter be revisited when the
reevaluation of the CIV program has been completed. At that point, the
faculty will be in a better position to see if a separate requirement is
still necessary.


             **********************************************
             SUMMARY OF BREADTH REQUIREMENT RECOMMENDATIONS
                            CHAPTERS 5 AND 6
             **********************************************

We recommend the following changes in what we now propose to call the
breadth requirements.


--THE SCIENCE CORE
  (THREE COURSES)

Either any three courses (including at least one quarter of lab) that
can be used to fulfill the major in a natural science department; or one
course each in Areas 4, 5, and 6.

We recommend that the university provide the resources for a task force
to design a new set of courses, tentatively entitled "Introduction to
the Natural Sciences, Quantitative Analysis, and Technology." When this
course is offered on a regular basis, it will replace Areas 4, 5, and 6
and become the only alternative to the three regular science courses.


--THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES CORE
  (THREE COURSES)

We recommend that Areas 7, 8, and 9 of the current DRs be abolished.
Instead, students would be required to take three courses in the
humanities and/or social sciences outside of their major program or
department.

These courses should have some thematic relationship, defined by the
student and approved by her or his advisor.


--THE CULTURES CORE
  (FIVE COURSES, EVENTUALLY CONTRACTING TO THREE)

For the moment the Cultures Core would remain as it is: CIV, American
and World Cultures, Gender Studies.

Immediate steps must be taken to restore a sense of common purpose and
curricular consistency in the CIV program. At the same time, a task
force should begin to create a set of courses that would fulfill the
functions now served by the five courses in the Cultures Core. This
course must be in place no later than the fall of 1998, at which time
the present Areas 2 and 3 will be eliminated.


--OTHER CHANGES

Students should not be allowed to take breadth requirements Cr-NC. The
Cr-NC option has a number of valuable functions in our undergraduate
program. It is, however, not appropriate for courses that the faculty
believes are important enough to be required of all students. The
current practice of using this option for distribution requirements
undermines their value and legitimacy.

Stanford students must fulfill the breadth requirements with courses
taken at Stanford, except that transfer students may fulfill them with
courses taken before coming to Stanford. Moreover, transfer students may
substitute three appropriate courses for the current and revised CIV.



-------------
7.  THE MAJOR
-------------

Stanford offers undergraduate degrees in over sixty departments and
programs. The largest has over three hundred majors, the smallest fewer
than half a dozen. (See Appendix 3, Table 2.) Some major programs take
up almost two-thirds of a student's total courses-Industrial
Engineering, for example, has 113 units of required courses, including
67 in the major itself and 46 in cognate courses; others take up no more
than a third-History requires 60 units in the major, with no cognate
courses. The structure of different major programs also varies widely
across the university. Characteristically, science and engineering
curricula have hierarchical arrangements in which one set of courses
leads to-and is a prerequisite for-the next level. (It is, of course,
this structure that makes most of these courses inaccessible or
irrelevant for the nonspecialist.) Most humanities and social science
programs have a more flexible structure, in which the curricular path is
less well defined and the possibility of individual choice substantially
greater. Many of the courses in these programs are open to all
interested students without prerequisites.

Obviously the Commission could not examine every one of Stanford's major
programs. Instead, we decided to study a sample in some depth. Our
Majors Subcommittee selected twelve undergraduate majors-five
departments in Humanities and Sciences, two in Engineering, and five
interdisciplinary programs. Subcommittee members then examined the
relevant materials in Courses and Degrees, compiled statistics,
interviewed the chairs and directors of undergraduate studies in each of
these departments, and conducted focus groups with randomly selected
undergraduate majors. In addition, questionnaires were sent out to 750
alumni, of whom over 500 replied. The subcommittee also interviewed
several faculty and staff who were active in undergraduate affairs and
25 departmental administrators responsible for undergraduate programs.

The results of these investigations suggest that major programs may vary
as much in quality as they do in size and structure. We found many
current undergraduates and alumni for whom work in the major was the
most valuable aspect of their time at Stanford. Some of them were doing
or had done research projects; most of them had established close ties
to one or more faculty members; almost all of them believed they had
learned significant skills from their major. But a disturbingly large
number of our informants had less positive experiences to report. They
told us that their majors seemed poorly organized, that they often did
not get good advice from the faculty, and that they perceived a general
lack of commitment to the program. The unevenness of quality we found in
our investigation is confirmed by the data in the most recent Senior
Survey, which also suggest that the level of students' satisfaction with
their major programs varies greatly. In some majors up to half the
respondents ranked their work with faculty "excellent," in others less
than one-fourth; in the highest-ranked major 95 percent of the
respondents thought the quality of courses was "good" or better, in the
lowest 47 percent. Similar ranges can be found in replies about the
quality of teaching, opportunities for individual research, and faculty
accessibility. However one interprets these data, we must conclude that
they do not reflect the kind of excellence Stanford must demand from all
its programs.

We cite these data not to indict any particular department or program,
but rather to underscore our conviction that many of our undergraduate
majors are in need of assessment and renewal. In order to encourage this
process, we have distilled from our investigations those elements that
the most effective major programs seem to share. We offer them as a
guide to reflection and reform, not as a template according to which all
majors should be refashioned.

Successful undergraduate majors at Stanford have the following
characteristics.

First, they have a coherent and progressive curriculum. Because of the
way knowledge is organized, curricular coherence and progress have
different meanings in different parts of the university. In science and
engineering, there is a clearly defined and rigorous sequence of
courses, appropriately ordered from basic to more advanced. Students in
these programs progress in a logical way from foundational to more
advanced materials and modes of analysis. But also in the most effective
humanities and social science majors, where knowledge is less
hierarchically organized, students have a sense that their programs fit
together and that they can progress through a set of interrelated and
increasingly sophisticated courses.

Second, successful majors have a faculty committed to undergraduate
education. Students in these majors believe that the faculty is
concerned with the program as a whole and committed to consistently good
teaching. Faculty advisors are available, responsive to student
concerns, and well informed about the program.

Third, in successful majors students are encouraged to approach the
material and problems of their discipline in several different ways.
Although these students may spend some time in large lecture courses,
their programs offer them a range of small classes and seminars in which
participatory learning is possible. In these settings, students learn to
present their arguments orally, acquire research skills, and undertake
substantial writing projects.

Fourth, successful programs provide a synthesizing experience for
seniors. Characteristically this is an opportunity to integrate their
knowledge and demonstrate their capacity for independence and
creativity. Students are given the advice and direction necessary to
participate in research. In our own discussions, students mentioned this
experience again and again as the high point of their undergraduate
experience. In the Senior Surveys, 75 percent of those who did research
or an honors project ranked the experience "very good" or "excellent."
Based on our findings, we make the following recommendations, which we
urge our colleagues to consider and apply to their own particular
departments and programs:

First, departments and programs should reexamine the aims and structure
of their curricula. Ideally, majors should have a sequence of courses
that distinguishes between foundational and advanced work. Centrally
important courses should be offered regularly and should be consistent
from year to year. When appropriate, programs should offer well-defined
tracks or concentrations to guide students through the major.

To create a coherent and progressive curriculum requires more than
merely labeling individual courses. Departments should decide how their
various courses fit together, determine the purposes of their
requirements, and consider how they articulate these purposes to their
students. This does not mean curricula should be uniform or inflexible.
It does mean that students' total experience should be more than a sum
of its parts. Rather than taking the same kinds of courses on different
subjects, students should obtain a growing sense of mastery and
sophistication as they move through the curriculum.

Second, we urge faculty members to reaffirm their collective
responsibility for their departments' curricula. Required courses should
be taught by regular faculty members, not by visitors, who often do not
understand their purpose or place in the curriculum. In large lecture
classes, the responsible faculty member should supervise the teaching
assistants, teach at least one section, and be actively involved in
designing examinations and evaluating students.

Faculty members must recognize that advising is part of their teaching
responsibility. Whenever appropriate they should enlist students to
provide peer advising. And they should regularly and consistently seek
students' opinions in order to give them a stake in the program's
improvement and success.

Third, programs and departments should establish courses in which
students are actively engaged in critical thinking, interpretation, and
analysis. The university should encourage departments and programs to
inform students about research opportunities and to ensure that those
students who want to do research can do so. In this enterprise,
cooperation with the professional schools can be of particular value.
The biology department, for example, has greatly benefited from its
collaboration with the School of Medicine in promoting undergraduate
research. We believe that greater efforts could be made to forge similar
partnerships between social science departments and the Law School, the
Graduate School of Business, or the Hoover Institution.

Fourth, every department and program should have a set of courses that
provide some sort of capstone experience for seniors. Students who
cannot do a yearlong research project should still be exposed to
research and have the chance to work with faculty members in a small
group setting. This is the best way to be sure that the final year adds
substantial value to a student's time at Stanford.

Fifth, we believe that the university must take greater responsibility
for establishing and maintaining high standards across undergraduate
programs. At present, interdisciplinary programs are regularly reviewed,
while departments are not. We recommend that all undergraduate programs
be regularly and comprehensively evaluated by a university-wide
committee. This review should focus on program coherence and rigor, the
quality of teaching and advising, and the effectiveness of the learning
environment. Student evaluations would naturally be an important part of
this process. When appropriate, several departments and programs should
be reviewed together in order to have a comparative basis for judgment.
Finally, the university should consider instituting a system of external
review committees similar to those used in the School of Engineering.


--INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAMS
In 1992-93, 30 percent of all undergraduates in the School of Humanities
and Sciences received their degrees from interdisciplinary programs
(IDPs). The students whom we interviewed frequently praised these
programs because of their interesting and challenging courses,
opportunities for independent research, and faculty dedication. The best
IDPs also seem to have a culture that encourages and supports good
teaching and an active engagement with undergraduates. Furthermore, as
we have just pointed out, IDPs are evaluated on a regular basis and
therefore are compelled to review and reconsider their programs. While
IDPs are not uniformly successful, we are convinced that they represent
a valuable contribution to our undergraduate programs, one that should
be supported and sustained.

Both the Majors Subcommittee and our Working Group on Innovation
registered their concern that IDPs, while often unusually successful, do
not have adequate funding. They run on minimal budgets and must
continually engage in an unequal competition with departments for
additional resources. We recommend, therefore, that successful IDPs be
given adequate base funding for the entire period in which they have
degree-granting authority. Moreover, the university should institute
mechanisms for placing fractional billets in IDPs, either by reassigning
existing faculty for a fixed period or by appointing some fraction of a
new position to an IDP. In the latter case, a faculty member from the
IDP would serve on the search committee and participate in the tenure
and promotion process.

The members of the Working Group on Innovation were also worried that
Stanford might be losing the flexibility and openness to innovation that
has enabled interested faculty to create programs outside of the usual
departmental frame. In order to preserve these valuable institutional
qualities, we recommend that departments and individuals be encouraged
to innovate and provided with the resources necessary to do so. This
would require making funds available to both faculty members and
departments to create new courses or sets of courses. It would also
require seeking to minimize the regulations and bureaucracy that get in
the way of experimentation. In contrast to many of our peer
institutions, Stanford has an entrepreneurial, innovative spirit that we
must preserve. Many IDPs are manifestations of this spirit at work.


--THE MINOR
Students should have the opportunity to pursue a subject in some depth,
without making the kind of commitment a major requires. We recommend,
therefore, that students have the option of declaring a minor, which
would appear on their transcripts and diplomas.

Minors would consist of at least six courses outside the requirements
for a student's major. Departments and interdisciplinary programs could
design minors. Students, with the assistance of faculty advisors, could
also design their own minors, which would have to be approved by the
committee in charge of individually designed majors.

The minor could serve many different purposes. It might, for example,
reflect a regional specialty, similar to the Certificate in African
Studies now offered under the auspices of the Center for African
Studies. Or it might focus on a particular problem, such as the
relationship of science and technology to the liberal arts. Or it might
record a student's linguistic expertise. Or it might simply represent a
special interest that the student wishes to pursue in some depth.
Whatever its purpose, the minor could not be six randomly selected
courses. Like the major, it should be both coherent and progressive.



----------------------------------
8.  ACADEMIC BOOKKEEPING:  CREDIT,
    UNITS, GRADES, THE TRANSCRIPT
----------------------------------

In this section we turn to what The Study of Education at Stanford
called "the metrics of the academic operation," those various units with
which we define the character, measure the quantity, and evaluate the
quality of students' academic experiences. As often happened in the
course of our investigations, the examination of academic bookkeeping
uncovered the healthy variety that flourishes in the university. We are
fully aware that the final decision in these matters properly rests with
departments, programs, and individual faculty members. While we have no
desire to impose strict uniformity-even if such a state were possible-we
do think it worthwhile to reexamine the metrics of our operation, review
the principles upon which they rest, and consider whether some
recalibrations might be in order.


--ACADEMIC CREDIT
Let us begin with the question of definition: What should be given
academic credit and therefore be counted toward a Stanford degree? This
is obviously not a question about what is valuable and worthwhile. A
great many good things happen at Stanford, but only some of them are
academic in character. Consider, for example, participation in athletics
or playing in the marching band-both worthy pursuits, but categorically
different from the study of organic chemistry or Latin American
politics. At present, however, Stanford, unlike any of its peer
institutions, gives academic credit for being a member of an athletic
team or the band and allows students to count up to twelve units of
these "Activity Courses" (as defined by the Curriculum Committees of the
athletics, physical education, and recreation department and the music
department) toward the total necessary to receive a degree. We recommend
that such Activity Courses no longer carry academic credit. Some
designation of a student's activities might appear on his or her
transcript, but the activity would no longer receive a grade or units.
Since most students have many more than the 180 units necessary to
graduate, this recommendation will not be a matter of great practical
importance. But the creation of a more consistent and rigorous
definition of "academic" does, we believe, have considerable symbolic
significance.

We recognize that Activity Courses are by no means the only nonacademic
activity that now receives academic credit. Indeed, we are concerned
that the boundary between academic and nonacademic pursuits has become
porous and indistinct; it may be time to reaffirm and, if necessary,
readjust it. We urge programs, departments, and individual faculty
members to consider what should or should not qualify as "academic." We
are convinced that many internships, public service projects, and
routine jobs in laboratories or faculty research projects, however
useful and valuable in themselves, are not necessarily academic. We do
not doubt that these pursuits should be encouraged, but we see no need
to award them credit toward the degree. Of course, such activities can
and should become the basis for academic work by being the subject of or
occasion for further research, reflection, or description.

In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the number of S-NC
(faculty-designated Satisfactory-No Credit) grades. The S-NC option is
appropriate for many kinds of activities, just as the student-initiated
Credit-No credit option is a valuable part of our grading system. We
believe, however, that there should be limits on how these options can
be used. Earlier in our report, we recommended that breadth requirement
courses not be taken Cr-NC. We now recommend that the number of S-NC and
Cr-NC units that students can count for their degree be no more than 20
percent of the total number of units required for the degree. Very few
students currently exceed this generous limit.

Finally, we urge our colleagues to consider what courses should be
offered for a grade. Using the grading system implies individual
evaluation and comparative judgment. In other words, students should not
get "A's" in a course where it is not possible for them to get "B's,"
"C's," etc. Courses that require nothing other than attendance or the
performance of a particular task should use the S-NC option.


--UNITS PER COURSE
The basic quantitative measure of a student's academic work is the unit.
Our examination of a sample of courses from autumn quarter of 1993-94
reveals some inconsistencies in the use of units, both within and across
schools. In some cases, there are dramatic differences in required class
time among courses of identical unit value. For example, one seminar
listed as meeting once weekly for an hour was assigned five units,
whereas other five-unit classes typically meet at least three hours per
week. Our survey of courses also suggests that it is difficult to
distinguish the classroom effort expected in a four-unit course from
that of three- and five-unit courses. Many courses are offered for
varying amounts of credit (e.g., 3-5 units). There are even cases where
cross-listed courses carry different unit values depending on the
department through which the student enrolls, even though the work load
for all students is ostensibly the same.

In an effort to see whether the present system of unit assignments is
equitable, we attempted to look at it from students' perspectives. The
distribution of enrolled units by academic major suggests that
engineering courses may require more effort for the same number of
credits relative to other disciplines. About 32.7 percent of engineering
majors take less than the standard fifteen units per quarter, compared
with 20.9 percent of humanities majors, 22.2 percent of natural science
majors, and 23.3 percent of social science majors. Conversely, at the
top end of the scale, only 16.5 percent of engineering majors enroll in
nineteen or more course units, compared to 27 percent of humanities
majors, 28 percent of natural science majors, and 23.3 percent of social
science majors.

We also looked at data from the student evaluation forms. One question
on the evaluation form is, "Did this course require more, less or about
the same amount of work as other courses for the same amount of credit?"
In general, the data suggest that for all types of courses-three-, four-
, and five-unit lecture and nonlecture classes, lower- and upper-
division-students taking courses in the natural sciences report a
considerably greater work load on a per-unit basis. For example, 48
percent of students in four-unit upper-division natural science lectures
report expending "more" or "much more" effort in their classes. About 23
percent of students in humanities classes and 35 percent of students in
social sciences report similarly heavy work loads. The data also
suggest, in general, that courses in languages and literatures and in
interdisciplinary areas require more work on a per-unit basis than
average.

Given the apparent unevenness of the current system, we considered
whether to abandon the credit-unit system and assign a single measure of
credit to all Stanford courses (that is, one course would equal one
credit, regardless of the time and effort involved). Several other
institutions operate in this way. We decided, however, that the current
system should be modified but retained. By recognizing that some courses
require more intensive effort than others, the unit system can help both
faculty and students create expectations about work loads for specific
courses.

Although we realize that a precise definition of an academic unit is not
possible, we recommend as a general guideline that every unit for which
credit is awarded should represent approximately three hours of actual
work (including preparation time) per week for the average student. The
three hours per unit is an average; actual time will depend on the rigor
of individual courses and the abilities of individual students.

We recommend that departments regularly note student evaluations of
their courses and change unit assignments where there are consistent
reports of heavier or lighter than usual work loads. In order to reduce
the significant variations in practice, we also recommend clarifying the
administrative responsibility for reviewing course unit assignments. At
present, it is unclear whether this responsibility rests with the Office
of the University Registrar, with individual school deans or department
chairs, or exclusively with the instructors. We recommend that the
registrar review proposed unit assignments and investigate instances
that do not appear to be consistent with university policy by discussing
the situation with the instructor and department chair. We further
recommend that the registrar report instances of gross over- or
underassignment of credit to the Senate Committee on Academic Appraisal
and Achievement, which would have final authority to determine the
appropriate assignment of credit.


--GRADES
In the spring of 1993-94, the Committee on Academic Appraisal and
Achievement recommended a series of changes in the grading system, which
were eventually passed by the Faculty Senate. These changes restored a
nonpassing grade to the transcript, narrowed the period in which a
student could add or drop a course, and limited the number of times a
student could retake a course. Although this evoked a great deal of
discussion at Stanford and in outside media about "grade inflation," the
committee did not claim that its proposals would have much impact on the
distribution of grades. Grade inflation remains a subject to be
addressed.

Two things should be noted at the outset. First, the upward trend in
grades is not a peculiarly Stanford phenomenon. Similar trends can be
observed at most, if not all, of our peer institutions. Second, it is
not a new issue. In 1968, The Study of Education at Stanford noted "a
significant upward shift in the average grades given Stanford
undergraduates."1    1 The Study of Education at Stanford: Report to the
University, vol.2, Undergraduate Education (1968), p. 47.   Over time,
the upward shift in average grades has steadily progressed; the number
of "A's" and even "A+'s" has grown, while the number of "C's" has
shrunk. (See Appendix 3, Graphs A and B.)

Although no one doubts the existence of this trend, there is
considerable disagreement about its causes and consequences. Some
continue to believe, as did the authors of the SES report in 1968, that
it "probably reflects improvement within the secondary schools and, more
certainly, the unusually high caliber of our undergraduates." Others
argue that the trend reflects changes in class size (because smaller
classes allegedly produce higher grades), the introduction of course
evaluations (because teachers seeking popularity allegedly give higher
grades), or a variety of other factors. Nor is there any agreement about
the effects of grade inflation. Some claim that both inside and outside
the institution, the Stanford grading system continues to command
respect; others fear that inflated grades make transcripts less useful
for graduate schools and employers. Since all of these views rest on the
slimmest of empirical bases, it is not surprising that they turn out to
be difficult to resolve. As usually happens, into such evidentiary
vacuums rush assumptions, anecdotes, and autobiography.

The Commission is inclined to believe that, whatever its origins, grade
inflation really is a problem. If we think of grades not as a currency
but rather as a kind of language, then it seems reasonable that a larger
vocabulary is preferable to a smaller one. At present, our grading scale
is not only moving up, but also becoming more compressed. It is
difficult to imagine that this will not eventually have an adverse
impact on the integrity and utility of our students' transcripts.
Moreover, we are convinced that the clustering of grades at the upper
end of the scale makes it difficult to identify truly exceptional work.
If, as there is reason to believe, our students actually are doing
better work, it is surely unfortunate that we have no way of recognizing
and rewarding them. In practice, the primary effect of the upward shift
in grades is to weaken the relative power of the "A" and to amplify the
significance of lower grades-the "C" means more now than it ever did.
The increasing diversity in grading policy across disciplines and
schools concerns us at least as much as the upward trend in grading. At
present, the diversity in the way grades are given has become so great
that we seem to be in danger of losing a common language of evaluation.
While there may be room for argument about the significance of grade
inflation, surely we can all agree that grades should have roughly the
same meaning throughout the university.

The Commission was not in a position to suggest remedies for the
problems of our grading system. The recent work of the Committee on
Academic Appraisal and Achievement, together with the community
discussion and Senate debate that followed, underscored how complicated
discussions of grading policy can be. We had neither the time nor the
appropriate composition to conduct a full-scale investigation of grades.
We will limit ourselves, therefore, to two procedural recommendations.
First, because we think faculty members should be aware of grading
practices in the university, we recommend that the grade distribution
for courses, by course size and discipline, be published in a way that
would not reveal the identity of individual courses. Second, we
recommend that a task force be established to conduct a thorough,
broadly based inquiry into grading policy and to recommend ways in which
grades can play a more effective role in teaching and learning at
Stanford. Since the Faculty Senate has ultimate responsibility for
grading policy, this task force should probably be a subcommittee of the
Senate's Committee on Academic Appraisal and Achievement.


--THE TRANSCRIPT
The Stanford transcript is a chronological record of a student's courses
and grades. Because it shows the development of a student's academic
career, this is a useful format for certain purposes. The current
transcript does not, however, display whether or how a student has
fulfilled various requirements and thus does not mark progress toward
the degree. More important, the transcript does not recognize special
skills, such as language proficiency. Nor does it record the kind of
coherence that we believe is an important part of a successful
curriculum. We recommend, therefore, that the registrar prepare some
alternative formats for the transcript, which would include information
about students' language competence, how they fulfilled the breadth
requirements, and what courses they used for their major and, if
appropriate, their minor field of study. A document providing this
information could serve as the basis for discussions between students
and their advisors, as well as a record of their academic decisions and
accomplishments.