A Sea Of Red

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/ ... 5_ST_N.htm

Dominique G. Homberger won't apologize for setting high expectations for her students. The biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests, she doesn't use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected 4, as she doesn't want students to get very far with guessing.

Students in introductory biology don't need to worry about meeting her standards anymore. LSU removed her from teaching, mid-semester, and raised the grades of students in the class. In so doing, the university's administration has set off a debate about grade inflation, due process and a professor's right to set standards in her own course.

LSU tries to reason it's way out of this, but just ends up sounding stupid.
I don't remember being in a single class at LU that graded on a curve. Does that happen now?

This goes beyond dumb...this is just plain mind boggling..."Here Johnny...we dont want you to feel bad because that big bad professor made her class so hard, so we're going to make sure she doesnt teach it anymore and just to help you feel better, here's a boost in your grade too..." I say...kids are getting molly coddled at all levels now. God forbid she actually wants her students to work hard and actually make some effort to do well in that class.

Some do... I noticed that for the most part it is the younger professors that grade on a curve...I think it might be a generational thing.

But in case any other Business grads were wondering Professor Mateer hasn’t gone soft he still takes pride in making sure at least half the class fails his first corporate exam ….lol

I never had a teacher who graded on a curve every. K-undergrad. I thought it was just something made up on TV. I can't believe anybody signed up for her class though, based on the 10 choice multiple choice questions. That had to be well known around campus.

From the class of 09 wrote:But in case any other Business grads were wondering Professor Mateer hasn’t gone soft he still takes pride in making sure at least half the class fails his first corporate exam ….lol

Wow! He's still there? He must be 100 years old.

In discussions with colleagues after she was removed from the course, Homberger said that no one has ever questioned whether any of the test questions were unfair or unfairly graded, but that she was told that she may include "too many facts" on her tests.

Too many facts? Seriously?

flamesbball84 wrote:

In discussions with colleagues after she was removed from the course, Homberger said that no one has ever questioned whether any of the test questions were unfair or unfairly graded, but that she was told that she may include "too many facts" on her tests.

Too many facts? Seriously?

she was a biology teacher....perhaps she didn't have enough speculation in her tests/quizzes.

Wow, that really sucks.

The only curve that was ever going to be given that I remember was in Sportswriting. However, a guy who got close to a 1600 on the SAT wrecked whatever curve there would've been. I still got exempted from the final though (fell within 10% of the max points possible, and that boy was ticked he wasn't the only one exempt, haha).

LUconn wrote:

From the class of 09 wrote:But in case any other Business grads were wondering Professor Mateer hasn’t gone soft he still takes pride in making sure at least half the class fails his first corporate exam ….lol

Wow! He's still there? He must be 100 years old.

As of last year he was still there...hand written test and solving time-value-money problems without a calculator

BJWilliams wrote:This goes beyond dumb...this is just plain mind boggling..."Here Johnny...we dont want you to feel bad because that big bad professor made her class so hard, so we're going to make sure she doesnt teach it anymore and just to help you feel better, here's a boost in your grade too..." I say...kids are getting molly coddled at all levels now. God forbid she actually wants her students to work hard and actually make some effort to do well in that class.

man with talk like this you would think you had been out of college for years and years....

with that said I didn't know a grading curve really existed...

From the class of 09 wrote:But in case any other Business grads were wondering Professor Mateer hasn’t gone soft he still takes pride in making sure at least half the class fails his first corporate exam ….lol

That first test was insane! Since everything is handwritten its even more confusing and intimidating. Glad that's done.