The South Carolina State reported last week that Milwood Motley and Larry Williams, two professors at Benedict College, were fired in June for not adhering to the university's mandatory grade inflation policy. That policy requires professors to calculate "freshman grades based on a 60-40 formula, with effort counting for 60 percent and academics counting for 40 percent. By sophomore year, the formula would be 50-50; [and] by junior year, students would be judged strictly on academic performance." Motley was apparently uncomfortable with the policy from the day he started teaching at Benedict five years ago, but reached a breaking point when he would have been forced to award a C to "a student whose highest exam score was less than 40 percent." At that point, Motley decided to award grades for the semester based on academic performance, and when told to go back and recalculate the grades, "just refused to do it." A faculty grievance committee voted 4-3 to reinstate him but was overruled by college president David Swinton. Defending the policy, Swinton argued that students "have to get an A in effort to guarantee that if they fail the subject matter, they can get the minimum passing grade. . . . I don't think that's a bad thing."
"2 Benedict professors fired over grade policy," by Carolyn Click, The State, August 20, 2004