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(04/17/20 1:37am)
Editors’ note: This op-ed was originally shared as a Facebook post by the author. The original post has been adapted for publication in The Campus.
After reading the open letter to faculty on the opt-in policy yesterday, I felt the need to respond with counter-arguments, drawn from both #FairGradesMidd communications around this issue and my own opinions. I’ve also admittedly talked way too much, virtually, with friends about this topic on both sides of the debate.
I’ll start off with a concession:
Neither universal pass/fail nor opt-in pass/fail will be the best grading system. The perfect grading system simply does not exist when students have to quickly leave campus and move to remote learning while also dealing with the impacts of a pandemic. In any system, some students will benefit and others will not.
Now, onto my juicy hot takes in response to the open letter:
Yes, a universal pass/fail system will disadvantage students who could have used this semester to raise their grades. However, I also acknowledge that this inequity is by no means parallel with inequities faced by students who simply won’t have the time, resources or space to focus on courses which I have the privilege to enjoy.
To the point that an opt-in policy respects choice: inequities dictate who has the power to make those choices. If some students have the ability to social distance, stay healthy and dedicate their normal amounts of time to school work, but other students do not because of circumstances at home, then that is inequitable. Theoretically, any student can then choose to pass/fail a course, but, in our current system, students facing challenges lose out on the theoretical “GPA boost” that the authors reference.
Not only that, graduate schools like Georgetown Medical School have stated that they will continue to “highly prefer” applicants who take all prerequisite courses for grades if given the option. So, a student who might receive a C while taking courses remotely — even if they normally earn As — has to make the catch-22 choice of taking a C so they can still apply to top-tier graduate schools, with a lower chance of success; or taking the pass and also lowering their chance of acceptance.
More offensively, the notion that some Middlebury students “slacked off” during the five weeks we were on campus while others “worked diligently,” in the words of the letter’s authors, is blatantly false and uninformed by the reality of who Middlebury students are. We have a stellar graduation rate, high average/median GPAs and excelled in high school to gain admittance. Who among our peers are the slackers?
In their second point, the authors contend that grades serve as a form of motivation or underpinning to college scholarship. However, grades do not and should not underpin academic scholarship, nor should they be the sole motivation to engage in this scholarship. If the loss of a letter grade causes a student to spend less time on academic work because they suddenly lack the motivation, then we have a deeper issue to address about why students engage in academics. But I do not believe most students will lose motivation.
The authors also point to the further confusion that may arise from the change in policy. But just because a policy has been in place is no justification for that policy to stay in place, especially policies instituted without significant consultation with faculty or students. Furthermore, an unignorable student-led campaign for alternative grading policies has existed nearly from the very first day that the college announced its policy, so I for one was never operating under the assumption that this policy was set and fixed.
To call a poll of 1,843 students (roughly 70% of the student body) irrelevant simply because it included an option that turned out to be unviable for accreditation is a blatant error. Even when removing that option, universal pass/fail still has more first choice votes than opt-in. To insinuate on a clerical error that the student body has not vastly voiced support for an alternative grading system is a blatant and intentional misreading of the data leveraged to serve the authors’ own opinions while silencing the vast majority of students.
In closing an email I sent to my current professors — something I encourage every student to do, no matter which policy you support — I said the following and I think it fits here as well:
“Though apparently some of my peers might argue that people should be allowed to ‘write their own stories’ about how they persevered through this time, let those stories be about persevering over a virus by contributing back to society through extra volunteer hours or aiding their family when family members fall ill or lose their job — not about persevering by getting that A in that one class because Middlebury continued to enforce artificial and inequitable grading standards.”
Mendel Baljon is a member of the class of 2021.
(05/02/19 9:58am)
Rabbi Goldstein was always prepared with a candy in his pocket when he asked, “What mitzvah (act of charity) have you done today?” After I answered, he would beam a big smile and reward me with a jolly rancher, a licorice, or, my personal favorite, a bag of M&Ms. On Saturday, while at Passover service, Rabbi Goldstein and the Chabad of Poway were targeted in a horrific and senseless act of terror. Lori Gilbert-Kaye, an integral and long-standing member of the community, was killed. Rabbi Goldstein lost a finger and two other victims who were injured by shrapnel.
I spent four years in preschool at Chabad of Poway and six years doing weekly Hebrew School in preparation for my Bar Mitzvah. This sanctuary served as both a school and a spiritual home. I distinctly remember the morah and rabbi teaching us the golden rule, the Ten Commandments, the Talmud and other lessons which are fundamental to my own personal beliefs about the inherent value of others. This is the place in which I learned the necessity of caring and doing good for others, but now I have to reconcile my belief in the value of others with the shooter’s denigration of others.
Every day, we receive news alert about horrible tragedies and acts of terror and, quite frankly, it can be overwhelming and become easy to turn into white noise. But when it happened to my own community, this was not just another news alert about another anonymous stranger somewhere out in the world. This was about the rabbi who taught me the value of mitzvahs, about the loving woman who invited my family and the rest of Chabad into her sukkah during Sukkot and about the wider community with whom I worshipped and learned. This act of terror will forever exist as a scar on the otherwise positive memories I have from Chabad. But, by recounting these memories, I might be able to show what was lost by this horrific act of terror and hopefully help to sensitize us again to this senseless violence.
On the first night of Shavuot, Jews stay up and study the Torah together in a half-asleep, half-awake trance. For children, we stay up late and basically have a sleepover in the synagogue. Every Purim, the Chabad hosts a massive carnival where children can dress up, play games and eat hamantaschen. Growing up, this Purim carnival was one of the most joyous events every year. Once I was older, I would spend my Wednesday afternoons with Rabbi Mendy studying the Torah and Talmud, playing video games and doing service projects around the synagogue. These are some of the fondest memories of my childhood, and now they have been tarnished. My previously joyful community now has a deep wound in it. So, please take a moment and share a thought or prayer in any language for Lori Gilbert-Kaye, a hero who will be missed, and for other victims of senseless violence.
If you would like to help our community at this time, please consider donating for victims’ families and synagogue repairs at chabadofpoway.com/standwithpoway. Most importantly, speak up in your everyday life against hatred wherever it may appear. When someone, whether that be our friends, family, elected representatives or teachers, makes a remark which diminishes the value of others, it is on us to hold them accountable. Creating a culture in which prejudice cannot prosper is an integral first step in preventing these acts of terror.
Mendel Baljon is a member of the Class of 2021.
(03/07/18 11:53pm)
This is the first in a series of three op-eds from the carbon pricing campaign at Middlebury. This week’s is focused on the federal level, next week’s is focused on carbon pricing in Vermont, and the last week’s endorses a carbon pricing mechanism at Middlebury College. To learn more or to get involved, come to Sunday Night Environmental Group at 8 p.m. at Hillcrest.
It is unacceptable and irresponsible for Middlebury to further delay joining the other colleges and universities that have endorsed carbon pricing. If you have ever watched “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Before the Flood” or another climate documentary, you were probably left with a bitter taste of dread and a sense of helplessness. While these documentaries do a great job of highlighting the danger of climate change, they often stop short of presenting real, practical policy to address climate change. Middlebury College, a long-time leader in environmental activism, must stand by its values and students by endorsing carbon pricing policy.
The idea behind a carbon price is simple: the government collects a tax for every ton of carbon dioxide which is emitted. A commonly held misconception is that this tax would disproportionately harm the pocketbooks of lower-income people; however, most proposed plans include rebates and tax returns to account for the increased cost on consumers. Funds can also be used to invest in building and researching clean energy solutions.
Carbon pricing is not radical, nor is it flashy. But it works. It is an equitable and science-based first step in combating climate change which accounts for the real cost of burning fossil fuels. This tax would work within the market to incentivize replacing fossil fuels with clean energy. A carbon tax is rooted in neoliberal economic theory –– it has also been shown to work in markets around the globe. According to Vox, over 40 countries currently have or are implementing carbon pricing.
British Columbia, Canada, has had a carbon tax since 2008. From 2007 to 2014 the province decreased carbon emissions by 5.5 percent despite an 8.1 percent increase in population. Over this same time, the province’s real GDP increased by 12.4 percent. Sans economic jargon, a carbon tax improved both the economy and the environment. According to The Globe and Mail, British Columbia’s carbon tax has been so successful that the Canadian government is instituting a national carbon tax by the end of 2018.
Support for carbon pricing spans the political spectrum. Carbon pricing has been endorsed by Barack Obama, Lindsey Graham, Angela Merkel, Rex Tillerson and even our very own Bill McKibben. These endorsements make it easier to have a national conversation about carbon pricing. In 2009, the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed the House but was never brought to a vote in the Senate. This bill would have instituted a national cap-and-trade market like that found in the EU. The bill was never brought to a vote due to a lack of enthusiasm from lawmakers to do so at the time. In the midst of the financial crash and the efforts to pass Obamacare, potential carbon pricing legislation was ignored. In order to let legislators know that there is public support for carbon pricing, we must continue to gain nonpartisan support from our institutional leaders.
This year, Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG), along with the Environmental Council, partnered with Our Climate’s national Put A Price On It campaign. One of the goals of this campaign is to gain endorsements from college presidents to demonstrate to lawmakers that institutions shaping tomorrow’s leaders are committed to solving climate change. In the past year, over 35 colleges have officially endorsed Put A Price On It, including UC Berkeley, Swarthmore College and Wesleyan College. We have collected over 1,200 signatures from Middlebury students asking the administration to also endorse carbon pricing. Given that the new Middlebury College mission statements aims to “foster the inquiry, equity, and agency necessary for [students] to practice ethical citizenship at home and far beyond our Middlebury campuses,” it is our sincere hope that our educational leaders will lend their support in this critical struggle.