At a recent Convocation of the Gods convened by the heavenly Precision and the divine Exactitude, a minor pseudo-deity with the odd name of Stay Testic spoke in favor of the proposed achievement index. The deity uttered an oracle: "It is not enough for students, faculty and administrators to be preoccupied with grades-they must be obsessed with them! Why extinguish a raging fire with water when it can be doused with gasoline? Why forget that if cold makes one numb than colder makes one number? Why make do with a paltry number of grades generated by A's, B's, C's, D's and F's-only some of which can be modified by pluses and minuses-when we have the prolific decimal system that ranges from zero to 100, each of which may be modified by tenths, hundredths and thousandths? Why not banish all of the murkiness and insist that every instructor assign a precise numerical grade for each student, ranking them in the exact order from one to 100 with only one number assigned to each student? Combined with the achievement index, this numerical ranking in every course will produce the desired result." Precision and Exactitude, hallowed be their names, smiled kindly upon Stay Testic.
The gods have spoken. The gods have upgraded, and the gods have downgraded. Let the degrading begin. Let the gods be praised. Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die. Precisely. Exactly. With no margin for human error. And Reducto ad Absurdum, the god of all gods said, Amen.
Kalman Bland
Department of Religion
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.