Recently, we were in the archives looking through old Sophian editions and came across an editorial from the Feb. 1967 issue of the Sophian. In this edition, the editors suggested that Smith students were overly focused on “peripheral issues” and were not paying enough attention to “basic educational issues.” We found this particularly interesting and relevant to life at Smith today over 50 years later.
Smithies today are faced with the challenge of deciding which issues they want to focus on fighting for, with the climate crisis, the rising costs of living, the fear of “what comes next” post-matriculation and global humanitarian crises it can be hard to focus on the reason that we are here: to earn our bachelor’s degrees.
In this 1967 editorial, the editors of The Sophian posed some questions for readers to think about. The editors asked: “What basic problems demand our attention?” and listed the questions: “What is the value of a Bachelor’s degree anymore? How can traditional curriculum be made more relevant in today’s society? and What do we think of grades and pass/fail?”
All of these questions are relevant to our Smith education today. In this issue’s opinions article, the question of the value of a bachelor’s degree is also posed. Recently, the New York Times published an article titled: “Nearly Everyone Gets A’s at Yale. Does That Cheapen the Grade?” which stated that “nearly 80% of Yale undergraduates earned A’s or A-’s in the 2022/23 school year. Grade inflation is becoming more and more of an issue at higher education institutions, though it doesn’t seem like this is as much of an issue at Smith which adds more challenges for students post-graduation pursuing graduate degrees. Anecdotally, we have heard from classmates that they take major requirement classes at Amherst College, which boasts being ranked as the best liberal arts college and 8th best college or university overall in the United States by The Wall Street Journal and College Pulse in 2024 because they are “much easier” and “it is easier to get an A at Amherst than at Smith.”
Recently the Law Students Admissions Council (LSAC) decided after much deliberation that they would continue to require the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), likely due to the discrepancies in grading systems among United States Universities. Perhaps it is time that Smithies rethink these questions posed by alums in 1967, “What is the value of a Bachelor’s degree anymore?”, “How can traditional curriculum be made more relevant in today’s society?” and especially“What do we think of grades and pass/fail?” With the increasing issue of grade inflation, are letter grades still valuable determinants of academic success? These questions, important in 1967, are of increasing importance now, and while there are many problems Smith students have to worry about, we argue that the “basic educational issues” posed by our fellow Smith students in 1967 should be added to the list.
