Good or Bad?

When Did an A Become Average?

When Did an A Become Average?

            The past few weeks we have been reading and writing about education. I have been focusing on the topic of grade inflation and how it effects students during their school career and even how it effects students within their careers.
            Grade inflation is evident in almost all college campuses across the nation. It is even a very big problem in a huge college like Harvard. In a recent school newspaper, it was stated that about 40% of all grades given at Harvard were A’s. That meant that the average grade at this college is an A-. That ether means that mostly all students are excellent straight A students, or something here is not right.
            When we look at grades at various colleges in the past we see that grade inflation definitely is a huge problem in schools today. In 1969, 7 percent of undergraduates had grades of A- or higher in contrast to 41 percent now. Similarly, grades of C or less have dropped from 25 percent to 5 percent. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/20/why-grade-inflation-even-at-harvard-is-a-big-problem/) As one can see grades have definitely been inflated. Back then, a C was considered the “average” grade and A’s were rare to come by. Even though today, a C still carries the title of “average” with it, does it still really mean average? I for one do not think so. Now a days C’s are frowned upon and I think that has all to do with grade inflation. Grade inflation made the C go from average to not good enough.
            Many believe that grade inflation has not been too much of a problem in the past, but now believe it is a huge problem with today’s undergraduates.  Focusing on studies for the past 45 years, looking at certain groups of students, professors, and deans a lot has been learned. According to deans and professors that have been in the business for a while, they see that each generation of students that they teach are just a little bit different from each other. With the current generation of undergraduates, though, ‘according to deans of students, current undergraduates are more coddled, protected, and spoiled than previous students. They told us, “This is a generation that has never been allowed to skin their knees.” “They all won awards at everything they ever tried—most improved player, fourth runner-up, best seven-year-old speller born on March 8.” Their parents are the “helicopter parents” whose children were “never permitted to fail” at any undertaking. They grew up with an inflated sense of accomplishment and expect to continue to receive awards or at least praise for everything they do.’ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/20/why-grade-inflation-even-at-harvard-is-a-big-problem/) What he is saying is very true. Many kids have grown up and are just handed everything that is given to them. And this starts to show in school when they expect to get an A for minimal effort. It almost seems as some teachers or professors today are afraid of what will happen if they give an F to a student because they know that the student and the parents of the student will blame them for not giving their kid a better grade.
            Looking at all of this, I think that this lack of effort to earn good grades will start to show up more and more often. Some recent Interviews with employers that were now hiring new college graduates were quoted saying that the college grads were “expecting to be rewarded for just showing up” and “asking for a raise after a month of mediocre work.” Some of the employers also talked about how many of these new employees are unable to take criticism. I think that all of these attitudes span out from the ideas of grade inflation and not having to work very hard for certain things anymore.
            One reason as to why employers may find it more difficult to find really great employees now a days is partly because of how grade inflation works. Let us talk about money for a minute. With regular inflation when looking at money, prices can rise to an infinite amount. So a car only a little bit ago could cost ten times less then, than it would today. The differences are substantial. When looking at grade inflation it is a bit different. Instead of the possibilities of inflation being infinite it can only be inflated up to an A. So, looking at this one can make the conclusion that if grade inflation continued to go how it is today, hypothetically, an A+ would be considered a good grade and if it got bad enough, an A- could be considered a bad grade. But lets not go that far into it. Looking at grade inflation now, A’s are almost the average grade to get so that would most likely make a C a bad grade. When employers are looking at new employees they could have a student that is all A+’s that always works as hard as he/she can and have another student that is just an A student that puts in average amounts of work and only works half as hard as the other student but the employer wouldn’t even know it by just looking at the papers that say both students are a students. (http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/12/26/why-college-grade-inflation-is-a-real-problem-and-how-to-fix-it)
            Looking at all of this, one can say that grade inflation is a huge problem and it can greatly affect our future. We need to find how to bring grades back to normal and to how they were created to be so that an A can actually mean an A and a C can actually mean a C.

A is for Average

In my original forum post I wrote “grade inflation has a negative impact on college students and it reduces the worth of a degree", After reading my two academic sources that I found using the library’s resources I believe inflation reduces the worth of a degree it also reduces the amount of effort that a student will put into their class work. Philip Babcock cited a study by C. Adelman that found 49% of Grades awarded at Harvard were an A in 2001, in 1985 that number was less than a third. Babcock also claims “it would appear that average GPAs rose between the 1960s and 2004, except for a flat spell during the 1970s” "REAL COSTS OF NOMINAL GRADE INFLATION? NEW EVIDENCE FROM STUDENT COURSE EVALUATIONS." (Article, 2010) [UNC Charlotte Libraries]. Web. 4 Apr. 2015. This piece of information alone does not mean very much, it could be that students are just getting better or professors are becoming better. Philip Babcock also found in his study that “Results indicate that average study time would be about 50% lower in a class in which the average expected grade was an “A” than in a class in which students expected a “C”. "REAL COSTS OF NOMINAL GRADE INFLATION? NEW EVIDENCE FROM STUDENT COURSE EVALUATIONS." (Article, 2010) [UNC Charlotte Libraries]. With this fact in mind it made it very clear to me to that grade inflation has a negative effect on students, but it did more than that. I stated in my original forum post that I felt it had a negative impact on students but now I understand what specific effect it has. Grade inflation reduces the will of students to put effort into their classes. this bothers me because it reduces getting a degree to something you just show up, sleep through and collect, instead of something you work for everyday or at least the majority of the week for.

The second article I reviewed was Grade Inflation: Academic Standards in Higher Education written by James F. Kay. He began his essay by describing the history of grade inflation and how to might have come into existence.  He also cited a few hypotheses by other people that could be possible explanations for the origin of grade inflation, “Other hypotheses, noted by educator Mary Biggs of the College of New Jersey, include the Vietnam War when a failing student could end up drafted – or worse” (Kay, J. F. (2012), Grade Inflation: Academic Standards in Higher Education – Edited by Lester H. Hunt. Teaching Theology & Religion, 15: 88–89. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9647.2011.00768.x). according to this hypothesis grade inflation may have started simply as professors not wanting their students to flunk out of school and end up getting drafted and dragged in to a military conflict which many did not want to take part in. he offered his own claim on the source of grade inflation, “But most of all, it was the transformation of students into consumers who actually were given the power to evaluate their teachers and to do so anonymously. No wonder positive correlations have been empirically established between easy graders and glowing course evaluations” (Kay, J. F. (2012), Grade Inflation: Academic Standards in Higher Education – Edited by Lester H. Hunt. Teaching Theology & Religion, 15: 88–89. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9647.2011.00768.x). I found this claim to be very interesting. It showed me the transition of what grade inflation used to be and what it is now. If the claim James F. Kay cited is correct then it means that grade inflation used to be something positive, a way for professors to help students stay in school and avoid being drafted in to dangerous military conflict. Now however grade inflation has a negative effect on college students. Professors no longer want to try and challenge students to do better or more. Instead they are focused on pleasing the students/consumers in their class, and what better way than to give everyone a nice A on their transcript.

My film that I viewed earlier in the semester was The House Bunny, this movie is about a playboy model who leaves Hugh Hefner’s mansion and becomes a house mother for a sorority. This movie did not make much mention of education in the movie. There was only one character named Natalie who cared about class, she was the only who ever really mentioned it. I feel that the stereotype about college age individuals being party animals and not caring about going to class helps contribute to the problem. No one ever really goes to class in these movies and I believe that it implants the idea into college students that “hey maybe I don’t really need to go to class”. Getting an education is the single most important part of going to college. Having time to do things with friends and trying out new things is also important to having a well rounded college experience. If you do nothing but go to class you’re not going to have much to talk about when you graduate. Priority needs to be given to academics and then attention and energy can be given to other things like spending time with friends or going to parties. As I mentioned before Philip Babcock found from his study that if students expect to make an A in the class they study less "REAL COSTS OF NOMINAL GRADE INFLATION? NEW EVIDENCE FROM STUDENT COURSE EVALUATIONS." (Article, 2010) [UNC Charlotte Libraries]. Movies such as this make college seem really really easy. Nobody seems to have any kind of pressure going on other than pressure created by social situations almost as if class room aspect of school is so easy that it is nothing that you need to worry. I recognize that it does not mean that college needs to be hard. It does not need to be overly difficult, but it does need to have enough of a challenge that it pushes you to get started on your work. I believe that is an experience that applies to life after college.

Over the decades that grade inflation has been around it has changed. What could have once been considered a positive thing has morphed into a negative influence on college students. Students become less likely to want to try and put effort into a class because they receive A’s or B’s for average or sub-par effort. The rise of students being seen as consumers as well has students has made professors less willing to challenge students to put forth their best efforts, instead opting to make the class easy and breezy so they get nice course evaluations and can fill up their class next semester. Movies such as the house bunny can also reinforce the idea that doing minimal work in college is the all you need to be successful. It drags down the quality of everything a degree is supposed to mean. Grade inflation has a negative effect on college students and devalues the worth of a college degree.

REAL COSTS OF NOMINAL GRADE INFLATION? NEW EVIDENCE FROM STUDENT COURSE EVALUATIONS." (Article, 2010) [UNC Charlotte Libraries]
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2009.00245.x/full - Philip Babcock

(Kay, J. F. (2012), Grade Inflation: Academic Standards in Higher Education – Edited by Lester H. Hunt. Teaching Theology & Religion, 15: 88–89. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9647.2011.00768.x)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9647.2011.00768.x/full - James F. Kay

A Woman’s Barrier?

This blog post is going to be a more detailed and deeper analysis from one of my previous blogs “Men Know Everything”. This blog was about gender stereotype and bias within the movie Good Will Hunting, to be specific the Harvard Bar scene where Clark shows the typical “Powerful male” stereotypical role. He is shown to be smart, charming, a leader and within this scene he shows his “superiority” as the “alpha male”. As I stated in my blog “Guys within movies are always portrayed as intelligent and always right while the women are typically viewed as less intelligent, slutty, and needy at times. Some movies portray women as strong and independent but even then they are treated badly, called a “cold-hearted bitch” and get ridiculed while its socially acceptable for a male to be bossy and strong-willed.”

My claim about the topic at hand is that women have this stereotypical expectation of how they should act in life and work. Those women who have more freedom will find this barrier within the work place that will hold them back because of the company’s belief about women and their “ability” in a working environment.  I have found two articles that can further develop this claim about gender stereotypes.

Now for the movie scene that really stuck out to me, I’d like to go into further detail about it.

“Within his scene Wills friend and Clark seem to have a battle of not only wits but masculinity. For Clark, his views of masculinity are being intelligent, ripping people off and making others feel inferior.” This really stuck out to me, since its something I really have noticed about males, more so in high school and middle school more than anywhere else. Even so, males tend to have a desire to “prove” themselves or to show off for someone. Though, this only happens when the males are “competing” for the “alpha” role.  As I stated in my blog “I noticed this mainly within middle school, because everyone typically wanted to be better than others. The guys would mess around in class, speak out, and wouldn’t really get in a lot of trouble cause it was “Boys will be boys.” But where do women come into this, and the barrier that they will eventually find themselves struggling to get across. Well men are typically viewed as leader like while women are the followers. 

In my first article called “Description and Prescription: How Gender Stereotypes Prevent Women’s Ascent Up the Organizational Ladder” by Madeline E. Heilman.. The article focused on “how women in a work place not only have to act a certain way, they have to be better than competent at what they do to be able to advance while men do sometimes have to go above and beyond to advance but some don’t.” It also talked about how men and women are typically viewed within society such as “Men are seen as natural leaders, standing tall, built bigger to seem tougher, so they are the first to be noticed in any situation…. Women are viewed to be dependent, soft spoken and act like doting mothers..” These stereotypes get stuck in a person mind, with the possibility of getting them to hold themselves back for fear of not being how others want them to be. This article focuses on how women are very rarely “high up” in command in their careers. It talks about how since women are viewed to act a certain way, how they are told to act, not by parents per say but by society itself, seems to make them less willing to act tougher or fight their way to the top. This is not only present in their career life, but in their college life as well when it comes to not only going to college but working part time as well. The article talks about how women in a work place not only have to act a certain way, they have to be better than competent at what they do to be able to advance while men do sometimes have to go above and beyond to advance but some don’t. While in school, if a girl spoke out or acted brash “we would get in trouble, told girls don’t act out like that and get the 3^rd degree for being “tomboyish”.

In the second article I chose called “Gender Stereotypes and Women's Reports of Liking and Ability in Traditionally Masculine and Feminine Occupations", as you can see by the title, it really focuses on the stereotypes both men and women have. “Women partook in a research test to see about their liking and ability to succeed in what people call a "Traditional Male Role". They talk about how women who are more "gender identified" prefer the more feminine roles in a work place while other women who are less "gender identified" took more of a liking in the male roles associated with work. With gender bias seeming to dictate a work place and school, people are tending to act how they are suppose to, and not how they are. They work the way they are suppose to or told to, and they partake in other activities that are shown to be something they HAVE to do or enjoy. This article gives a lot of data of what they uncovered and the methods they used.”

Now back to the scene with Clark and Will. Something that I noticed is “Clark tried to act smart, memorize things that he could use to make himself seem smarter than others. He did not learn to better himself; he learned to be able to make others inferior.” As I stated in the blog post, most men don’t typically do this. With the pressure they also receive from society, they have to act a certain way as well, in everyday life and in the work place. Guys in the work place have to really be out there. For some it’s easier, for others its down right impossible. It’s who that person is that should determine their place in a job or in a classroom.

My last opinion:

People have dealt with societies, peers and parental pressure to be a certain way for years, but it should stop. People act differently because we are all not the same, we have our own identity, and we are our own person. We shouldn’t have the cookie cutter image of what everyone should be, and let people excel at things they truly are good at, not matter what gender or race they are. 

http://unccblog14.blogspot.com/
"Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 57, No. 4, 2001, pp. 657–674"
http://uncc.worldcat.org/title/description-and-prescription-how-gender-stereotypes-prevent-womens-ascent-up-the-organizational-ladder/oclc/1430363711180?referer=brief_results 
"Psychology of Women Quarterly, 32 (2008), 196–203. Blackwell Publishing, Inc. Printed in the USA. Copyright C 2008 Division 35, American Psychological Association. 0361-6843/08"
http://uncc.worldcat.org/title/gender-stereotypes-and-womens-reports-of-liking-and-ability-in-traditionally-masculine-and-feminine-occupations/oclc/424876405&referer=brief_results

Are Women Sex Objects to Men?

In most college movies, the women are seen as sex objects to the men in the movies. Men in theses college movies are always partying, drinking, and having sex. All the women do is to give the men the pleasure of their sexy bodies. Hollywood makes several movies each year and a few of those movies are comedies. Why does Hollywood choose to exploit college life and college education by the use of stereotyping women and degrading them?

So I have chosen two articles that both related to my issue as well somewhat related to the analysis of both my movie and the scene that I chose. The two articles that I have chosen are: Sexting, Catcalls, and Butt Slaps: How Gender Stereotypes and Perceived Group Norms Predict Sexualized Behavior and Mean Girls? The Influence of Gender Portrayals in Teen Movies on Emerging Adults’ Gender-Based Attitudes and Beliefs.

My first article is a study that was performed to examine the role of endorsed stereotypes of men and women as well as the group norms regarding the three distinct stereotypical sexualized behaviors (Jewell and Brown, 595). One way that the population is being affected by these sexualized stereotypes about men and women is through the media itself. Yes, that is right Hollywood, TV commercials, movies and magazines are targeted to the late adolescents of the United States (Jewell and Brown, 595). Seeing how the media is greatly affecting the young adults and college students about the stereotypes of both men and women is very frightening. So why is the media degrading or even stretching the truth about college in general in their college teen movies in the first place?
In Sexting, Catcalls, and Butt Slaps, it is stated that “Although we predict a link between sexualized gender stereotypes and stereotypical sexualized behaviors, we assume that stereotypical sexualized behaviors will be gender-specific, as each gender has a different part in the heterosexual script,” (Jewell and Brown, 596). This statement pretty much proves that both the men and women in the world have a specific “sex role” in life. The in the study that is talked about in this article, the participants were mostly women (178 girls, 72 boys) and that more than 39% of the women in the study were a part of a sorority Jewell and Brown, 597). Um, hello is the connection between the media, aka Hollywood, college women finally connecting in your brain. Hollywood and the media are focused on the women in sororities at college!! The article even states that a little more than 29% of the men in the study are a part of a fraternity (Jewell and Brown, 597). The connection between my movie, American Pie Presents: Beta House, and this article is so greatly connected that it blows my mind.

In the other article, Mean Girls, it has a two part study that explores the exposure of teen movies and the cognitive theory framework of documenting gender portrayals. The students were participated in this study were surveyed about their viewing habits, gender-related beliefs, and attitudes ( Behm-Morawitz and Mastro, 131). The first sentence in the article says “Research examining the effects of media exposure demonstrates that media consumption has a measurable influence on people’s perceptions of the real world, and, regardless of the accuracy of these perceptions, they are used to help guide subsequent attitudes, judgements, and actions,” (Behm-Morawitz and Mastro, 131). This statement is true because in the real world today, people are told that college is all about the parties that happen on campus. It also lets the reader know that people’s judgements about college are wrong in a way that they want to believe what they hear. When I first came to college, I was surprised at hoe much time the sororities and fraternities spend doing fundraisers as well as participating in the campus life at UNC-Charlotte.

The study gives a list of what teen movies are and also gives some examples. “A Teen movie is defined as a movie starring teenage characters that focused exclusively, or predominantly, on these characters, and that was marketed primarily to teens and young adults, (Behm-Morawitz and Mastro, 134). Some of the teen movies that are provided are as follows : Freaky Friday(2003), The Lizzie McGuire Movie(2003), Bring It On(1999), A Walk to Remember(2002), and many more are listed. These movies are true teen movies whereas Beta House, Good Will Hunting, Neighbors, and etc. are considered college movies. The difference between these groups of movies is that the second group is more focused on the college life and what happens in college and on a college campus. Some of the movies such as Beta House and Neighbors, focus more on the partying and Greek Life of college, while Good Will Hunting focuses more in the education aspect of college life, which in turn the first two college movies lack. But the first set of movies listed that came from the article, are the teen movies that teenagers, 12-15 year olds, should watch. Teenagers don’t need to watch the college movies because (1) the movies can be rated R, (2) the graphic nature and sexual nature of the movies, and (3) teenagers are too young to be viewing the college movies that deal with sex.

So, how do my two articles relate to my issue of women and stereotypes? Well, college movies portray when gender roles in the movies based on the stereotypes that are generally focused around college like parties, drinking, and sex. The media, *cough cough* Hollywood, likes to the stretch the truth about the big stereotypes based upon women (they are only sex objects and just give men sex all the time). And finally, how does the articles, my issue and my movie relate to one another? UM HELLO?? Each one talks about the women and how they are considered “sex objects” in college, when in reality the women are not that. The women of sororities are respectful young women who help out in the community and around campus.

Smart Kids, Big Schools

In the movie Good Will Hunting, I have decided to analyze 2 different scenes. The First scene would be when will and his friends come across a Harvard student, Clark. This really brings out the stereotype that people that go to a good school have to look like they have money, act very smart and even have to be “stuck up” to fit in.

            When will and his friends, who are all blue collar, easy going guys, head to the Harvard bar, they are expecting to see stereotypical, preppy, and smart Harvard college students. In the movie, that stereotype proves to be true. While Will’s friend is talking to some Harvard girls, this preppy looking Harvard student, Clark, comes up to them and tries to make Will’s friend look dumb by doing what everyone thinks he would do and what every stereotype says he will do. He starts asking Will’s friend all of these questions and stating a bunch of facts to try and make him look dumb. Then Will comes in and outsmarts Clark and goes against the stereotype for the type of person Will is. Most people would not expect Will, a lower class young man that does not attend school, to outsmart a guy like chuck.

            The other scene I decided to analyze has much less to do with the actual movie, but it is the scene where it shows Professor Maguire teaching in his classroom at Bunker Hill Community College. The reason why I decided to analyze both scenes is because they both show the differences in stereotypes between the average community college student and the prestigious University student. While Clark, the Harvard student is able to throw all of these facts at you and talk very proper, the students in this scene at the community college almost seem elementary compared to him. For instance, the scene opens up and shows a girl chewing on her hair and then Professor Maguire asks another student “Why is trust the most important when making a breakthrough with a client?” and the college student (portraying the community college student stereotype) says “Um.. Because, uh, trust is, uh, trust is life.”

            Now that I have seen the differences between the 2 types of students, I can most closely tie this into Tatum’s ideas in the article “Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” I say this because in both scenes you can see people that match the same stereotypes as the people around them. In the scene with Clark, his friends that are nest to him are dressed the same way and both have that stereotypical smart look. In the community college scene you have the kid that answered the question and the girl that was eating her hair and all of the other students that have a “dumb” look on their face. This relates to what Tatum said by saying similar people stick together.

Do you think the stereotypes between the different college students are true?

Are Women Truly "sluts" in College?

The scene I have chosen to analysis from Beta House is the tie-breaker scene toward the end of the movie. This scene shows that the two leaders of the Greek houses get a lap dance from women. In this movie, the women are portrayed as girls who party, drink, and have sex all the time. With the scene that I chose, both the Geeks and the Betas provide women to give lap dances. Each of the women that is brought out has very little clothing on. The first set of women had on short shorts and shirts cut up to their breasts. The second set of women are in lingerie who remove their bras, and the final set of women were chosen by the leaders of the fraternities. Edgar, leader of the Geeks, brought in a woman from Las Vegas who is a professional dancer, while Dwight, leader of the Betas, brought in Bobby's girlfriend dressed as a lamb.

One of the Beta girls giving Edgar the first lap dance

At UNCC, the women of the sororities do more than constantly partying. The sisters perform community service projects, support a variety  of different charities, and etc. I think that the women in Beta House and the women of UNCC are different because the women in  Beta House are constantly drinking, showing off their breasts, and having sex. The girls/sisters of UNCC provide a stable idea that sisterhood is a bond that can never be broken while providing service to the community. The girls portrayed in Beta House are considered "sluts" while the girls at UNCC can be considered more social rather than party girls. Even though the sororities at UNCC do throw parties, those parties are more like social gatherings. The girls in Beta House provide the fraternities the pleasure of sex, boobs, and partying. Seeing how the women are portrayed in Beta House, Hollywood has stretched the truth about the women in college.

Bobby's girlfriend, Margie, dressed as a lamb

Knowing how Hollywood portrays women in Beta House shows that the college education of women in this movie is very lacking because the education aspect is nearly absence in this movie.
The tie-breaker scene in Beta House shows that the college education of women in this movie is lacking. This proves that the Beta House movie provides no explanation on how women use the college education as a form of stereotype towards women. This explanation also provides evidence that women in the movie are considered “sluts”.

Also, throughout Beta House, you can notice how different groups come together in similarity to Beverly Tatum's article, "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" As she states at the beginning of her article, "Walk into any racially mixed high school cafeteria at lunch time and you will instantly notice that in the sea of adolescent faces, there is an identifiable group of Black students sitting together." (pg.359). In relation to my movie and this quote, the beginning scene of Beta House, you see all the little "cliques" together. So Tatum's quote relates to my movie greatly as we see in the Greek Olympiad, is that Bobby is considered the "farmer", Erik and Ashley are the couple, and the Betas are considered the "drinkers". Also all the women shown in the movie are dressed in "slutty", "skanky" clothes, such a school girl's uniform.

So in a whole, are women truly "sluts" in college?

The Lav Vegas professional/exotic dancer

The exotic dancer with her legs apart in Dwight's face