Friday, August 10, 2012

Grade inflation meets the Dead Sea Scrolls?

FROM THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION:
Fired Professor Says Seminary Forcibly Raised Students' Grades

By Dan Berrett

A scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls who is fighting dismissal from a graduate school of theology is alleging that his former employer inflated some of his students' grades to retaliate against him.

The dispute pits Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, a former associate professor of the New Testament, against the Interdenominational Theological Center, a consortium of eight seminaries in Atlanta. The center awards master's and doctoral degrees in such fields as divinity, Christian education, church music, ministry, and theology.

The center did not respond to multiple telephone and e-mail requests for comment.

Mr. Hopkins alleges that administrators at the center changed the grades of 10 of his 54 students last semester. A printout of a grading report provided by Mr. Hopkins, with students' names redacted out, shows a number of marks changed from failing to passing.

[...]
This situation will have to be resolved by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, presumably based on more information than is given in the article, and I don't have any comments on it. But I note it here because the Dead Sea Scrolls are involved, sort of.

Via Bob Cargill on FB.