Evan Goldin | The great divide

When I sat down for my astronomy midterm last semester, the question was staring me in the face: "The Sun subtends an angle of .5 degrees when viewed from Earth - what is the Sun's angular diameter?"

Yeah, I had no idea either.

Luckily, the exam was open book. I looked up the section on calculating stellar diameters and found the right answer. But not everyone was that lucky.

That's because there wasn't just one section of introductory astronomy last semester. There were two. My section had the pleasure of being able to bring the textbook, class notes and lecture slides to the exam. The other section didn't have that option, as its exam was closed book.

And while my grade would have plummeted if I had to take the exam sans book, it certainly isn't fair to give one section that advantage. Even if a curve makes up for it, why create the dichotomy in the first place?

This kind of thing happens throughout the University. Across classrooms, different sections of the same course just don't receive the same treatment.

Some sections have a lighter workload than others. In my Negotiations class this past semester in the Wharton School, we did in-class mock negotiations every week. And after two of those weeks, we had to author short self-reflections. Other sections, however, had to write those same self-reflections every week.

Again, great for me. Not so much for the other sections.

Speaking with friends and other students revealed how widespread the problem is.

Spanish 219 is a prerequisite for Spanish majors, minors and those students who want to study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country. Some sections are taught by graduate students who administer easy tests, while others are taught by tenured faculty, who give more demanding, more difficult exams to their students.

Conditions aren't much better at Wharton either.

In Finance 100, a class required for all Wharton undergraduates, professor Craig MacKinlay's sections this past semester got different treatment than those of professor Michael Roberts. While MacKinley's students completed two short assignments during the semester, Roberts' sections, on the other hand, had in-class quizzes instead.

"I personally would rather do the assignments like we had in MacKinlay's class than have to prepare for a random quiz like in Robert's class. It makes it feel fairer," Wharton sophomore Stephen Kneubuehl said in an e-mail interview.

When it comes to down to it, it just seems as though teachers aren't communicating. Or, when they do, they (or their teaching assistants) can't seem to come to a consensus on what material to give to students.

Often, differences occur because of faculty's varied teaching views, as College Dean and math professor Dennis DeTurck explained. "Sometimes the faculty teaching the course have strong feelings [about course content and format] and no one is going to mediate that," he said.

Making matters worse, the issue has been barely a blip on Penn's radar screen. The only mention of any problems whatsoever came in a report the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education issued in 1995 that discussed grading differences between sections.

The University's 251-page Handbook for Faculty and Academic Administrators is packed full of policies. These range from when to report animal-rights violations to when final grades must be turned over to the registrar - enough legalese to bore you to tears. And the Pennbook, which lists "policies affecting Penn students," clarifies whether students can eat and drink in class (they can't), requires students to abide by a code of conduct (don't steal things) and sets out guidelines for how much photocopying is allowed (and after 1,791 words, the answer still isn't clear).

Neither of these publications, however, contains any mention of treating different sections equitably.

Maybe we should take a note from our neighbors to the north. The University of Manitoba requires that "provisions shall be made for equitable treatment of all students enrolled in" multi-section courses - one of the only schools on the continent with any coherent policy.

DeTurck disagreed, however, explaining that many courses already have "course coordinators" to mediate disagreements. "The notion is out there that things should be fair," he said. But these coordinators aren't doing enough to create equitable conditions for students.

When it comes to course coordination, "sometimes it's a question that nobody thinks to ask," DeTurck said, "because everybody thinks they know how it's supposed to be done." Well, it's time to start asking. And if conditions don't change soon, department or school-wide enforcement or policies shouldn't be far off.

Until then, I'll keep checking the back of the book to find the Earth's mass. And in case you're in the astronomy section that couldn't open the book, the answer to that question was 1800 arcseconds. Better late than never.

Evan Goldin is a junior history major from Palo Alto, Calif. The Gold Standard appears on alternate Tuesdays. His e-mail address is goldin@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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