A few weeks ago, I sent my syllabus to the students enrolled in my Business Associations course this fall. I told the students that I had been re-designing my course to increase the level of student engagement. Based on enrollment, I gather that some of the students were not thrilled about this. Prior to the email, the course was maxed out for the size of the classroom, and I have dropped over 10 students in the intervening weeks. (Thus, another benefit of threatening to engage the students: fewer exams at the end of the semester!)
With regard to one student, however, I didn't have to speculate about his reaction. He sent me an email detailing his "issues" with the grading:
(1) With regard to my plan to have each student team "grade" homework assignments of three other student teams, he wrote, "When enforcing the law school curve, I do not believe that students should be grading each others' assignments when they have an overwhelming incentive to give low grades to boost their own. This invites dishonesty and unfairness. I guarantee you that students will not hesitate to slash the grades of others to get ahead. Keep grading entirely in your own hands."
(2) With regard to my plan to evaluate some of the assignments on a team basis, rather than student by student, he wrote, "As we will being ranked in the law school as individuals, it is senseless to base grades—to any extent whatsoever—on the performance of others. I understand the pedagogical goals behind group work, but those can still be accomplished while grading us as individuals rather than as teams."
Later in my series of posts on teaching, I will write more about the student's substantive concerns, but this post is about process. How would you respond to this email? I confess that my initial reaction was not very charitable. My inclination was to invite this student to hit the road. Take Business Associations from someone else if you don't like my class!
Fortunately, I had the good sense to sleep on it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this could be a great learning opportunity for both of us. I believe the student had some legitimate concerns (though at least the first concern was misplaced, and I have revised my syllabus in an attempt to make that clearer), but his method of expressing those concerns was way out of bounds.
So I responded as follows ...
Prior to sending this email, I have read and re-read your email to me. I have been waffling about what to write or whether to write anything at all, but I was finally persuaded to write by the hope that my reply might be helpful to you. So please read it in that spirit....
In your email, you "guaranteed" that students in the class would be dishonest and unfair, and you called my plan for the course "senseless," even as you assured me that you fully understood my pedagogical goals. You also commanded, "Keep grading entirely in your own hands."You are the only student who has written to express concern about the team projects, though I am certain you are not alone. While I sympathize with some of the substantive concerns expressed in your email and hope to explain my approach more fully on the first day of class, I am troubled by the tone of your messages. In my 14 years of law teaching at six law schools and several international programs, I have encountered only three other students who have addressed me in a manner comparable to this. You can infer from the previous sentence that these are memorable experiences for me.
I am writing in hopes of encouraging you to reflect on your decision to send those messages. Obviously, you are frustrated by the prospect of having your work graded by other students, but insolence and condescension rarely persuade. As you may know, I am a blogger, and in the heat of an exchange, I am sometimes tempted to adopt a tone similar to the tone of your emails. Indeed, I have sometimes succumbed to that temptation. But when I have gotten some distance from those exchanges, I almost always regret having pressed "send." Those messages may be cheered by my supporters, but they often cause the other side to become even more stubborn in their position. And they make me look petty and immature.
The bottom line is that you are not doing yourself or the causes you advocate any favors by communicating in that way, and if in the future you behave similarly toward judges or senior lawyers, you won't be doing BYU Law School any favors either.
I won't reprint his lengthy reply, but it began, "I am so absolutely and so sincerely sorry about my message." He explained to me some things about the context in which he sent the initial email and why various outside stresses and strains may have resulted in him writing a message that sounded so hostile. He was extremely sincere, and I was really quite moved by his desire to make amends. Far from being on my black list, this student is now someone I quite look forward to having in class, even though we have never met.
Reflecting on my own life experiences, remembering those occasions when someone older and perhaps wiser had gone out of their way to help me by correcting me, rather than just ignoring me or aggressively putting me in my place, I suspect this student learned something meaningful from that exchange. And it reminded me that my job here extends beyond the classroom and beyond corporate law.
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1. Posted by mmmhmmm on August 21, 2008 @ 15:26 | Permalink
First, I don't think that the student went about it the right way, but I tend to think that his sentiments are correct.
Group projects in law school tend to bring out the worst in students. You inevitably have the slacker who will rely upon everyone else. You inevitably have the individual that is a control freak. And you have those whose actual performance will be inevitably less than the best since, after all, it's a group project.
Inviting students to score another student's work is at worst asking for abuse, but at best it's like the blind leading the blind. Not to mention, it won't follow any reasonable distribution.
Second, and probably most importantly, students are still the customers in the law school situation. You might to totally appreciate this fact, but when the student is paying for a very expensive service (and may be for a very long time). So, if there are not a significant number of choices (say, among bus. orgs. professors) then unfavorable terms of a course is actually costly. This is especially true for those courses that tend to be seen as important or required (say, bus. orgs.).
If you went to an expensive restaurant where you're ask you to pay first, but then told you that the only thing you can order is a side of beef, rare, and a diet Cola, wouldn't you be a bit frazzled?
Law school isn't that different. Most students can safely assume that a course will have one final exam and their score is largely dependent on their own relative performance.
Finally, you can bet that at least some of those that dropped thought, "oh f*** that, I'm dropping." And there's probably some others that either 1) haven't yet read the syllabus; or 2) weren't paying that much attention.
2. Posted by Alum on August 21, 2008 @ 16:15 | Permalink
All i can say is welcome to BYU Law. That place is a pressure cooker. Lots of competition, plenty of students with families and aspirations. Coming out of BYU, being top 30 vs. top 20 or 15 percent could mean a 50% difference in your salary, and everyone knows it. Once you start affecting grades, and/or job prospects the gloves come off.
Just ask your colleagues about the ongoing conflicts over the past couple of years regarding co-curricular opportunities, admissions, grading scales between two different sections of the same con law classes, etc.
I am surprised its taken this long for you to experience it. Glad to hear that you haven't been exposed to it too much in the past. I also have to say that I really liked your response to the student.
3. Posted by Gordon Smith on August 21, 2008 @ 17:35 | Permalink
mmmhmmm: "Group projects in law school tend to bring out the worst in students. You inevitably have the slacker who will rely upon everyone else. You inevitably have the individual that is a control freak. And you have those whose actual performance will be inevitably less than the best since, after all, it's a group project."
Sort of like ... real life?
4. Posted by Gordon Smith on August 21, 2008 @ 17:44 | Permalink
By the way, the student misunderstood the "grading" of group projects, and I will explain that on the first day of class next week. I retain control over all of the recorded grades, but I want each team to evaluate assignments from the other teams because I have found that students (and lawyers) learn a great deal when they compare their work with the work of others. Plus, having peer evaluations should be valuable to the students whose assignments are being evaluated.
5. Posted by RJS on August 21, 2008 @ 17:47 | Permalink
Alum,
Your characterization of BYU is exaggerated. First, the difference between the top 30, the top 20, or the top 15 percent does not amount to a 50% pay-cut. I can name a half dozen 2L colleagues in the 30-40th percentile with callbacks at V20-V50 firms in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. Certainly the difference between a 25th percentile and a 75th percentile student may amount to a 50% pay-cut, but the differences are not that pronounced among the top half.
At any rate, taking issue with a group grading scheme (which I also vehemently oppose, and which made my decision not to take professor Gordon's class all the easier) is no more a symptom of the "pressure cooker" atmosphere at BYU than it is of the general tension among students at any law school.
Law school is unique from undergraduate and other professional programs because students face a hard GPA cut-off for interviews. The cut-off for the most prominent firms may be higher at BYU than Harvard or Columbia, but there is a relative cutoff nonetheless. For any student bordering a sensitive cut-off point, a unique grading system would understandably raise red flags.
While GPA may be irrelevant for students at Yale and Stanford, it's a significant concern among students at most top tier law schools.
6. Posted by Gordon Smith on August 21, 2008 @ 18:09 | Permalink
Alum: Thanks for the comment. I found this statement interesting: "Once you start affecting grades, and/or job prospects the gloves come off."
Unless I am projecting, there is a subtle revelation in this statement. You seem to treat grades based exclusively on three-hour finals as the baseline -- almost as if this is the right way to grade. When you approach things that way, then every deviation from that model looks suspicious.
In my experience, the students who have thrived under the traditional evaluation method are (naturally) quite defensive of it, and they speak in very highfalutin tones about the value of that method.
I am not at all interested in preserving the traditional system because I think it is not well designed to promote learning. Indeed, it seems designed to promote the welfare of law professors, not students. Just think of it: only one exam per semester, a rambling set of facts that is unbelievably easy to write (no need to be careful when stray facts are part of the experience -- "red herrings" that students should be careful to spot and avoid) and has no correct answers, so students cannot effectively challenge the final grade. It's exactly the sort of system a group of self-interested professors would create if it didn't already exist. And, of course, the fact that all of the professors flourished under this system means that it is self-perpetuating. Beautiful!
7. Posted by Gordon Smith on August 21, 2008 @ 18:26 | Permalink
Ok, I just realized that I have made three comments on a post about "defensiveness" ... ahem. Sorry about that. This is what you get when you don't sleep on it.
But as long as I have the floor, I would be interested in responses to this statement by mmmhmmm: "Most students can safely assume that a course will have one final exam and their score is largely dependent on their own relative performance."
It seems to me that final exams are still the norm in most law schools, but I cannot think of a place I have taught (including BYU) where I would consider it anything close to an expectation or an entitlement. I would be interested to hear from professors and students about whether students would be justified in having such an expectation. Or have alternative evaluation methods proliferated to the point where that expectation is no longer justified?
8. Posted by Justinian Lane on August 22, 2008 @ 10:27 | Permalink
This semester (the first of my 2L year) will be the first in which I have had a class (other than legal writing) that didn't have a written final worth most of my grade. I'm taking a Food and Drug law class in which 85% of your grade is based on a written paper, and a civil trial advocacy class which has an "oral final."
The vast majority of classes at Michigan State Law have written finals that usually make up at least 75% of your grade. I've come to expect written finals as the norm, but don't have issues with alternative methods. I certainly don't consider it to be an entitlement.
That said, I also tend not to like group work for many of the reasons explained above.
9. Posted by 2 L on August 22, 2008 @ 11:12 | Permalink
Prof. Smith:
Your reaction to the student's email is an example of what is currently wrong in law schools. You are completely out of touch.
First, you graduated in the early 90's, when (M&A boom) firms like Skadden thrived. Law Schools like UC had the ability to place students in the top firms regardless to their class rank. Since that time, the following things happened:
1) there are now over 200 ABA approved law schools (dilution)
2) recession (less jobs)
3) there is a HUGE disparity in salaries (bi-modal distribution) because of the "Cravath system" http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/2008/07/how-the-cravath.html
4) tuition (~150k over 3 years) has blown past inflation
Second, your experience in law school does not come close to what the kids at BYU are going through:
1) you and your classmates had the pick of any BIGLAW job
a) to this day, UC grads have their pick:
http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/20080414employment_trends.pdf
b) by contrast, the percentage of BYU grads in large firms is hovering
over just 10%
2) Running a law school is a business. As such, you are providing a SERVICE.
a) you should not only be open to criticism of your (new) policies, but you should foster it.
10. Posted by Chad on August 22, 2008 @ 12:15 | Permalink
For all those whining about the idea that professors are there to provide a service should read this: http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/nosymp.htm
All of these are good, but flip over to the "Students are Customers" for the info.
Or get posts from The Glom on
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