Oberlin students demand end to grades below C

Students at Oberlin, which has the reputation as a good school, are demanding that the administration abolish any grades below C.  And while they are at it, they should abolish midterms and essay questions, replacing them with a conversation with a professor.  Their reasoning is that they have too much to do, what with their activism on top of their course loads.  Also, they are paying for their attendance and need to get what they want from it.

From Oberlin students want to abolish midterms and any grades below C, The Week:

Students at Oberlin College are asking the school to put academics on the back burner so they can better turn their attention to activism. More than 1,300 students at the Midwestern liberal arts college have now signed a petition asking that the college get rid of any grade below a C for the semester, and some students are requesting alternatives to the standard written midterm examination, such as a conversation with a professor in lieu of an essay.

The students say that between their activism work and their heavy course load, finding success within the usual grading parameters is increasingly difficult. “A lot of us worked alongside community members in Cleveland who were protesting,” Megan Bautista, a co-liaison in Oberlin’s student government, said, referring to the protests surrounding the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a police officer in 2014. “But we needed to organize on campus as well — it wasn’t sustainable to keep driving 40 minutes away. A lot of us started suffering academically.”. . .

“You know, we’re paying for a service. We’re paying for our attendance here. We need to be able to get what we need in a way that we can actually consume it,” student Zakiya Acey told The New Yorker.

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