<p>Actually, S did not turn in grade sheets, either, and neither did the prof (it was done electronically). By this I mean midterm and final course grades. Grades for quizzes stayed with S. But the responsibility for sending the final course grades electronically to the registrar was still the instructor’s. S in fact had an email discussion with the prof about how to convert the numerical grades he’d given into letter grades. The prof agreed and sent in the letter grades proposed by S.
I understand that not every university works the same way. What I remain puzzled about is the role of the prof in this story.</p>
<p>Another senario is that the OP’s son is COMPLETELY responsible for the teaching and grading of a class. This is the case for my 23 year old daughter who is a “first year” master’s student at a large college. She teaches two “intro level” classes, grades the students’ work totally alone, and is reponsible for entering those grades into the larger system. Her only preparation for teaching solo was a one week program the school gives in the summer. She has a professor “mentor” who visits the class once a semester and meets with her outside of class weekly to answer questions, but what happens in the classroom and how she grades is totally up to her. Last semester, her first, she told us story after story of kids approaching her asking for higher grades or just a PASSING grade when they hadn’t attended class, hadn’t turned in homework, and hadn’t been there to do in class assignments. They had sob stories of not being able to graduate, having their parents threaten to pull them out of college, etc. My D has no patience or sympathy for students who expect something for nothing and if they failed, she failed them. If they did D work, they got a D. It is a lot of pressure when the students can be just a year or two younger than you. Maybe that is the “peer pressure” the OP mentions.</p>
<p>If that is the case, isn’t it the prerogative of the TA as instructor to alter grades? Ordinarily, I would assume that a rationale for changing them would be needed along the lines of “I made a clerical error.” But how could anyone challenge the rationale and thus the grade change?
This story still baffles me.</p>
<p>I was thinking along the lines that the OP’s son maybe gave a student a grade they didn’t deserve or earn. Say they had a D at the end of the semester and after being approached by a student, he raised it to a C. If said student then went out boasting, “Hey I asked TA Mr. Smith to raise my grade and he did! Hey dude, you should ask him to raise your grade too!” Since the grade of one student had been raised, how could he refuse others who came in with the same request? Maybe it became a slippery slope he couldn’t step off of. Then, if another professor, TA, etc. heard the boasting by the students, they could have reported it. All conjecture, but that was what my mind conjured up!</p>
<p>I read that a TA “raised” the grades of 4-5 students. To me this means the students had quiz grades and/or paper grades and/or exam grades and/or lab grades that earned them say a C but he raised it to a B. And he raised some grades (perhaps class favorites or students he somehow got to know socially or students in same frat as he was undergrad etc etc) but not all. If a prof went in at the end of a term or after the term, and calculated the grades manually, and found that 4-5 kids got their grades raised a letter but this was done without curving, and the TA did favor these kids and give them grades they did not deserve, this is academic dishonesty on the part of the TA. Can he say these kids showed more classroom participation etc, sure. But sounds like he raised grades, got caught and has admitted that the students did not get the grades they deserved. Time not to spin but to throw yourself at the mercy of the school. </p>
<p>He did an immature thing without realizing the consequences. Hopefully he can own up and not be expelled. To the OP, hugs. He will survive this, as will you. It will not be easy.</p>
<p>Sunnyflorida:</p>
<p>That sounds like the most plausible explanation: the TA was caught out by the instructor who turned him in.</p>
<p>To move on to the other part of the story. The TA is only one semester away from graduation and has lost the scholarship. That seems to mean that financially, he and his family have to cough up one semester’s worth of tuition, room and board. Perhaps that’s doable. From the point of view of graduation, the issue is more tricky. Presumably the work done toward the degree (coursework, dissertation or MA. thesis) is what counts for the diploma and that the teaching is a separate issue? Can degrees be withheld from students on the ground of moral turpitude or some such charge when they have fulfilled the academic requirements?</p>
<p>"Can degrees be withheld from students on the ground of moral turpitude or some such charge when they have fulfilled the academic requirements? "</p>
<p>The student can be expelled.</p>
<p>I don’t see the point of getting a lawyer involved. I think the student should just quietly take his punishment and move on. If the student changed other students’ grades by hacking or by changing grades that the actual professor had given, then that is an offense worthy of expulsion and also could have been charged as a criminal offense. Better to go quietly than to antagonize the whole department and risk their doing their best to make sure that the student can’t go elsewhere for graduate school.</p>
<p>Below describes what happened to one grade changer:</p>
<p>"Thomas F. Kirwin, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida announced Tuesday the sentence of Marcus Barrington, 24, of Tallahassee, to 84 months’ imprisonment for aggravated identity theft, unauthorized access of a protected computer, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unauthorized access of a computer, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 371, 1028A, 1030, and 1349. Barrington, a student at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), was convicted of these crimes in March 2009 following a five-day federal jury trial before Chief United States District Judge Stephan P. Mickle.</p>
<p>Evidence presented at trial established that between June and December 2007, Barrington conspired with two other FAMU students, Christopher Jacquette and Lawrence Secrease, to access the FAMU computer system for the purpose of making unauthorized grade and residency changes. "</p>
<p>[FAMU</a> Student Sentenced To 84 Months In Prison In Computer Intrusion, Grade Changing Scam](<a href=“http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/60273627.html]FAMU”>http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/60273627.html)</p>
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<p>This whole thing is interesting to me. As a TA in grad school, I once lobbied hard to give several students the actual grades that they’d earned, but the TA and professor vetoed me and gave the failing students C’s instead.</p>
<p>Aibarr, I feel for you. When I was a professor, my department chair went behind my back and raised the grades of some failing students who went to him literally crying that I was unfair. From day one – when I had handed out the syllabus, I had been very clear about what was required for the course, but they just hadn’t bothered to do that. Ticked me off that the dept. chair would act like I was at fault when the students were just plain lazy.</p>
<p>Aibarr’s post is interesting because it involves a prof as well as a TA, and it is the prof who has the ultimate authority. That was the case for my S, as a CA; but it may be that the situation is different.</p>
<p>I’m also puzzled by the situation. Depending on the subject matter and the school, grading can be very subjective. I’m assuming that in this case, there was a clear violation of some established grading policy. When I was a grad TA, I was the sole instructor in charge of the class and grading, with no supervision at all, and the type of situation described by OP could have never come up.</p>
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<p>Sounds familiar. My husband’s contract at his college was not renewed, as we found out a few weeks ago. The ammunition widely-suspected as being used to oust him was the attrition and failure rate of freshmen students… He taught freshman-level music theory. The program was open-enrollment–no auditions, no entrance requirements, no previous experience required. Many of his students couldn’t read music. Even the fairly-damning pretest that he administered to all freshmen at the beginning of the year didn’t save him.</p>
<p>The competent students universally said he was the best professor they’d ever had, and many literally cried upon finding out about his termination. The ones who were looking for an easy degree despised him, despite the fact that they screwed up their attendance grades, didn’t turn in their homework, didn’t show up for lectures, skipped exams, and didn’t attend his office hours.</p>
<p>Odd that university administrations can bend these situations to whichever way they choose. They sometimes turn a blind eye, they sometimes choose to persecute an instructor and use student grades as an excuse to punish them, and even if the instructor tries to protect themselves through well-written syllabi, it seems like they can go after them anyway.</p>
<p>OP, I’d tell your son to consider the possibility that there are some academic politics behind this. It may have nothing to do with his case, but… I’m wary, these days.</p>
<p>aibarr:</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear of this, though not totally surprised. A lot of schools want to be popular and to keep students, no matter how bad their performance.
But I remember your posts about whether to move for your husband’s sake or not. I hope this does not mean another uprooting! Best of luck to you both.</p>
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<p>Nope-- we kept “home” here in Houston, and I kept my great job with a first-rate firm, so he’s just moving back home for now. He’s in a truck with all his textbooks headed eastward right now. It’s very frustrating to have been separated for an entire year for a tenure-track position that treated him so poorly, but we’re determined to land on our feet, and far better that this happen now than after we’d decided to make our home there. Also, since they couldn’t find a real reason to fire him, they’re paying him through the end of his contract–beginning of July. We expect that this will end up being a blessing in disguise…</p>
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<p>Someone a couple of months short of getting a graduate degree is probably at least 24 or 25, if not older. This is an adult.</p>