NSU professor loses job in dispute over grades

At the end of this semester, Steven Aird will lose his job as an associate professor of biology at Norfolk State University for giving out too many F's.

Aird says his termination is part of a dumbing-down of academic standards at NSU - a move by administrators to intimidate faculty members into passing undeserving students and rewarding inferior work.

Other faculty members in NSU's School of Science and Technology say they, too, have experienced pressure to bend their standards to pass more students, and more than a dozen current and former students in the school back up Aird's claim.

Because it is a personnel issue, NSU administrators declined to comment directly about Aird's case. But Sharon Hoggard, a university spokeswoman, flatly rejected Aird's accusation that the school has dumbed down its standards.

"It goes against our very mission, which is to provide an affordable high-quality education for an ethnically and culturally diverse student population," Hoggard said in an e-mail response. She pointed out that NSU is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, for which it must meet stringent standards.

Aird says he understands, and believes in, NSU's mission. But he insists that too many of the university's students are ill-prepared for college-level work. "I really care about my students," he said. "That's why I refuse to lower the bar. The objective should be competence, not grades."

For more than four years, Aird has carried on a running battle in which NSU administrators repeatedly pressed him to raise his pass rate and he steadfastly refused.

Twice, he was denied tenure and issued a one-year terminal contract, meaning he would have to leave at the end of the year. After the first denial, he filed a grievance. A faculty grievance committee found in his favor, ruling that the tenure decision was flawed by procedural violations and retaliatory actions by administrators.

He reapplied and was turned down again, despite a favorable recommendation by a departmental tenure review committee. Citing seven classes in which 83 to 95 percent of his students got a D or F, Sandra DeLoatch, dean of the School of Science and Technology, wrote that Aird's "core problem" was "the overwhelming failure of the vast majority of the students he teaches."

His bosses say it's the teacher's responsibility to make sure the lessons are getting through. Carol Simpson, provost at Old Dominion University, agreed that a professor's high failure rate would be an appropriate matter for some type of intervention.

"It would send a flag that something is amiss," she said. "What that something is - it could be all kinds of things, depending on the class and the students and the professor. But it does say that all is not well. You would expect a reasonable bell-shaped curve where the top part of the bell is maybe a middle C. You wouldn't expect to have huge numbers failing."

The problem could be the difficulty of the material, the students' level of preparation or the way the material is being presented, Simpson said.

"Not every professor is an expert in the classroom," she said, "although they may be terrific researchers or scholars."

Hoggard, the NSU spokeswoman, said the university uses a multifaceted assessment of teaching effectiveness based on faculty portfolios, student ratings, peer evaluations and comments from the department chair and dean.

This semester, his last, Aird has been removed from the classroom. He spends his time doing research and job-hunting. At 55, he faces the possible end of his academic career.

Aird grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington and earned a doctorate in zoology from Colorado State University. A published researcher, he specializes in the chemistry of poisonous snake venoms.

After four years as a university teacher and researcher in Brazil, he came to NSU in 2002 and was assigned to the chemistry department. His first semester, 22 of the 24 students in his biochemistry course got Ds, Fs or dropped the class. In a November 2003 memo, Associate Dean Larry Mattix warned him: "This low level of student success is unacceptable."

The issue surfaced again quickly. In a December 2004 memo, Camellia Okpodu, the biology department chair, expressed alarm about the grades in lab sections of the freshman-level biology course. Dean DeLoatch, in rejecting Aird's application for tenure in March 2007, reiterated the theme again.

Each time, Aird's response was unbending. "I believe that we serve our students and our country best when we help our students to discover and develop their abilities, and when we help them develop the intellectual tools and the strength of character to overcome the obstacles they will encounter in life," he wrote in reply to Okpodu. "That cannot be accomplished, as so many at NSU have tried, by pandering to them and to their parents with inflated grades and pass rates."

To support his allegations of grade inflation, Aird performed a statistical analysis of two common exams that were given to all students taking the freshman-level biology course in the fall of 2005. The median grade in all sections on both exams - taught by five different professors - was F.

His final grades were an accurate reflection of students' performance on those two exams, Aird wrote the dean.

Hoggard said attributing the discrepancy between exam results and final grades to grade inflation is too simplistic.

"Every student doesn't learn in the same way," she said. "It becomes the duty of the faculty member to find ways to ensure that his or her students are understanding the material."

Student testimonials to Aird cite his passion for biology, his enthusiasm in the classroom and his willingness to help students who are struggling.

Natalie James, a senior biology major, took Aird's zoology class in 2006. "He told us at the beginning of the semester, 'It's going to hurt, and I'm going to really push you.'

"I was up at 2 o'clock many mornings e-mailing him with questions. It was a challenge the whole time."

James said Aird had a pleasant attitude and she learned more than she could have imagined in one semester. At the end of the course, she said, "I came out with an A by the skin of my teeth."

In contrast, James said, she easily received an A in another class. "Yes, it looks nice when you get out with a 4.0 GPA, but then you go to medical school and you know nothing."

Tiana Stephenson, a junior journalism major, took Aird's freshman biology class in 2005 and found it difficult, despite Aird's out-of-class assistance.

"I got a D - the only one I've ever gotten," she said. "If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have taken his course. I was still in a high-school mindset, and he's not a high-school teacher."

Some of Aird's colleagues agree that professors feel pressure to pass more students.

At the School of Science and Technology, said Joseph Hall, a chemistry professor and president of the Faculty Senate, "faculty are - I'll use a nice word - encouraged to try and pass 70 percent of their students." If the rate drops below 70 percent, he said, "faculty are called in and asked to explain what they're going to do about it."

Aird thinks the phenomenon is due in part to the evolution of a "consumer culture" in higher education. He argues that administrators are tempted to placate students and parents with good grades to keep the tuition dollars flowing.

The financial pressure is particularly acute at NSU. Alone among Virginia state schools, most of which are experiencing significant growth, NSU's enrollment has declined by more than one-third over the past 15 years.

Hall echoed Aird's view that many NSU students come poorly prepared for college work.

Because so many have deficient study habits and poor writing skills, he said, "if you adhere to a certain standard, you would flunk a significant number of them, and you have to do something to try to get them to catch up." For instance, Hall said, he gives optional bonus quizzes to help students pull up their grades.

"I think what Steve decided was that the university should put programs in place to build up the background of the students, or admit better students. And he stuck to those guns."

Cassandra Newby-Alexander, an NSU history professor and vice president of the Faculty Senate, chaired the faculty committee that upheld Aird's grievance. She said there's always room for improving one's teaching technique, but she felt Aird deserved a chance to be mentored. "He didn't get the fair shake he should have had an opportunity to get."

I hesitated posting it because, all the under-cover-Kluckers seem to come out of the woodwork if they smell the chum of RACE in the water. And unfortunately, my predictions were correct.

I find it interesting that you paint your protests against broad-brush statements regarding minorities and affirmative action with such a nuclear broad brush.

Affirmative action is a taint on American society with the manner in which it has been implemented, because it both casts doubt on true individual achievement as well as guaranteeing failure for many students who otherwise would be successful (affirmative action students at MIT routinely fail, whereas they would likely succeed handsomely at lesser technical schools like the one I attended - it's a question of preparation, not of race). Thomas Sowell (I believe) wrote a highly coherent column on this subject in the not-too-distant past.

Recognizing the effects of a socialistic promotion policy based on anything but achievement - including the negative shadows cast on those individuals who achieve success by their own exertions - isn't racist. (I would say that refusing to recognize that there are such individual achievers touched by those shadows would probably be racist - "probably" because I cannot know the mind of another man.)

On the other hand, "under-cover-Kluckers" apparently cannot be reasoned with, but instead should be dismissed with incendiary posts.

To be completely fair with your post, however, I should also note that your words "I did not feel that this article was an issue of race, but an example of how we cripple our children by not requiring or expecting excellence from them." are right on the money, and I could not agree more.

Your argument appears to be that the students being unable to master the material is the fault of the professor. Across 5 different professors, the grades on an identical tests had a median F. The other professors curved the grades up, meaning that failing grades became passing.

Why is the one prof who chooses to grade in a known and predictable manner (as opposed to on a curve) the one who is wrong?

“see Post 47....your comments?”

....my post was based on a 1997 study by the Association of American Medical Colleges[AAMC]is which it frankly admitted it’s bias for affirmative action....the report “Minority Students in Medical Education” begins by defining a new category of future doctors known as “Under Represented Minority”[URM] students....the implication being that the medical profession should have the same the same proportion of racial/ethnic/gender groups as the country in general regardless of qualifications.....the report profiles URMs and found lower grades in college and lower MCAT scores by a factor of 30%...hopefully this disparity has been overcome in the last 10 years.

I am about ready to fail three-quarters of my intro to computer students. Why? Well, I start ever semester laying out exactly what they have to do in the class to get a good grade & most of them just don’t do what I’ve asked. Started w/ 21 students, had 3 withdraw. Out of the rest, I currently have 3 coming to class regularly with about 4 others popping in once every other week or so.

I have never had this many kids pay for the class, then just blow it off. One girl e-mailed me that she could’t come to class because gas cost too much. Then she tells me that she needs the class to transfer to one of the state universities, next semester. I can’t understand how she a) justifies paying the tuition, but then basically throwing that money away because of the cost of gas. And b) how will she get to class at the university cause she’ll have to pay for gas to get there too.

I should mention that this is a community college with open enrollment, so as long as the kid has a high school diploma, he/she can attend. But still, this isn’t even trying and failing, this is just not even showing up to class!!

Tomorrow is D-Day, the last day of classes before finals. It’s the last day I will accept an missing assignments. This should be good!!

>> Your argument appears to be that the students being unable to master the material is the fault of the professor. <<

That’s a load of crap. I specifically compared his students to MIT by comparing little-leaguers to major-league sluggers.

>> Across 5 different professors, the grades on an identical tests had a median F. <<

Are you asserting that you know of some outside, objective criteria that *all* of the classes failed to meet?

(Or do you presume that anything less than 65% of all scores correct should be an ‘F’? If so, probably every student at NSU ‘flunked’ their SAT scores, which translate 65% correct to an 1180 out of 1600 ... which before the redesign was a good enough score to get Harvard, Stanford, etc. sending you scads of recruitment brochures!)

If these kids would flunk an objective measure, I’d certainly retract my comments, but I’d have to see good sources.

Fair enough, Dangus. Regarding the 5 different professors, I was simply referring to information from the article. Not being involved directly in the situation, I cannot determine the correctness of the assessment.

SAT scoring, however, is not absolute as defined prior to the test being taken. It is a comparative score only (with comparisons valid only for each re-normed version of the test that is administered).

If 65% is the established criteria for pass/fail on the test described in the article, then it is eminently fair to hold students to that standard (provided that the test is properly normed for this grade scale).

I apologize if I mischaracterized your argument, although I did simply state the way it appeared to me. Thanks for the clarification.

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