Grades have always been important in education. They provide evidence of how we assess what we do as teachers and how well our students respond to what we have to offer. Unfortunately, as we have quietly accepted the philosophy that education should be treated like a business, grades have become the product that we offer our customers, the students. The impact that this has had on higher education became especially clear to me last quarter.

Part-time faculty share two offices at one of the community colleges where I teach. Thirty of us have eight work stations and three cubbies where we can have semi-private conversations with students. While scheduling can sometimes create problems, it’s a lot better than having no office at all, and we enjoy having contact with each other. On most campuses, we feel separated from others, but here we are able to exchange our ideas and concerns, as well as our pedagogical philosophies and strategies.

One of the common themes of our discussions is how we are so often viewed as “hobbyists” who need the assistance and guidance of our full-time colleagues. Without fully understanding the circumstances that we face, many of them feel we are ignorant and that “providing information” will solve all of our problems.

We have made some progress in overcoming this stereotype by offering to conduct workshops during In-Service days and making it more public when we present papers at conferences, but we still have a long way to go. Because of our tenuous connection to the college, we seldom have opportunities to get to know our full-time colleagues – and have them get to know us. Open discussions of concerns that we have are rare, and we tend to be defensive when they do take place. It’s only in the quiet security of places like shared offices that we will openly discuss the impact that our circumstances have on the jobs we do.

Of course, Finals Week is a stressful time, especially at the end of Fall Quarter when so many of us have responded to the “famine” of summer quarter by taking on too much in the fall. Entering the Holiday season makes it even more difficult because while those around us seem to be gearing up for celebrations, we are once again worrying about whether we will have classes next quarter or not.

Humor provides a release, but the frustrations that go along with being a professional part-timer are just below the surface.

“I’ll never get through these papers in time,” I complained. For some strange reason, Washington State had moved up the deadline for reports, which meant that we had to have grades in two days earlier than usual. Two of the courses I taught use portfolio assessment, which means I had three papers plus the final from each of the fifty-three students in those classes. On another campus, I had taught three classes and had ten-to-fifteen page papers from nearly sixty students in those classes.

“You should try my grading method,” one of my office buddies suggested. “I use gravity grading.”

“How does that work?”

“I stand at the top of a staircase and throw the papers up in the air. Those that land at the top get A’s, those that land in the middle get C’s, and those that make it to the bottom fail.”

Another colleague overheard and chimed in. “Personally, I just give everyone an A. That way, they don’t complain and my student evaluations are always positive.”

Of course, we realize that assessing our students’ work is one of the most important things we do as teachers, but it’s also among the most frustrating. At most colleges, the work we do is judged primarily, if not exclusively, on our student evaluations. As public perceptions concerning higher education have changed, so have student reactions to what we do. Several years ago, we were seen as the experts who had valuable knowledge to impart to our students; now we are seen as clerks who dispense grades, certificates and diplomas to customers who are constantly encouraged to express their displeasure.

I was once called in to “discuss” my student evaluations with my supervisor. After being grilled because of two students who complained that I was “disorganized” and “unfair” in my grading, I asked what the remaining fifty students had to say.

“Most students automatically say positive things, so we don’t pay attention to them. When a student feels a need to complain, though, we take it seriously.”

So, I realized that I was facing a "no-win" situation. At that college, student evaluations could only work against me. Fortunately, in my experience, this is an extreme example of how bad it can be. Unfortunately, it's not as rare an occurence as we might want to believe.

It’s little wonder that studies show over-reliance on part-time faculty leads to grade inflation, but it doesn’t happen because we don’t know any better. It happens because so much of our security depends on “making the customer happy,” and the only real way to fix the problem is to improve the full-time/part-time faculty ratio and provide more security and better compensation for all of us.