Tenured professor Denis Rancourt was suspended by the University of Ottawa in December after promising to give all the students in his fourth-year physics class an A+ as their final grades, the Globe and Mail reported Feb. 6.
Rancourt said traditional grades limit students by pressuring them to score high marks rather than learn the material.
Two weeks ago, police escorted Rancourt off the campus in handcuffs and charged him with tresing when he went to host a regularly scheduled meeting of his film club.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers has launched an independent inquiry into the issue. The University is recommending his dismissal.
Objection to Rancourt’s grading scheme is faulty justification for suspending him.
The University should have used his action as an opportunity to open up dialogue on progressive models of teaching and learning.
It’s disappointing that universities, which claim to be pillars of intellectual freedom, seem to accept all types of academic criticism except when it’s directed at their organizational structure.
Tenure is meant to protect academics from being unreasonably punished for pushing academic boundaries and, if the University is prepared to treat Rancourt’s tenure lightly, perhaps it should reconsider its process of granting tenure.
Although Rancourt’s proposed action is logistically unsound, he should be commended for innovatively seeking to reform a problematic grading system that rarely accurately measures students’ abilities.
In theory, relieving students of the pressure to get good grades allows them to explore abstract and radical ideas in their assignments without the fear they won’t conform to the expectations of the course.
But it’s idealistic to believe all students will pursue this learning style. Students who use the marking scheme as an excuse to skip class shouldn’t be treated the same way as students who try to engage with the material.
Rancourt could have organized a group of educators to talk to the University about teaching reform rather than embarking on a one-man effort that garnered him media attention but little change.
It’s time for universities to explore grading reform.
For the University’s lack of imagination in grading schema and shameful overreaction to Rancourt’s action, we give it an F.
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