EDITOR
Paula Lavigne
OPINION
EDITOR
Kasey Kerber
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Brad Davis
Erin Gibson
Shannon Heffelfinger
Chad Lorenz
Jeff Randall
Guest
VIEW
Grade
idea
Three-grade system
will resolve inflation
Indiana Daily Student
Indiana University
Bloomington, Ind. (U-Wire) -
Recently, all students received an
updated semester grade report for the
fall semester, revised to include the
new three-grade context information.
While many students might be
confused by this new format, it repre
sents a strong move by the adminis
tration to combat the effects of grade
inflation.
Grade inflation has plagued
Indiana University, just as it has
plagued most other educational insti
tutions for decades.
Most often, it manifests itself by
way of a heavily skewed average
grade point average. While orticial
transcripts state a grade of C is aver
age, the average GPA at Indiana tends
to be closer to a B, a tendency caused
by teachers who do not use the entire
grading spectrum, A through F.
It is nearly impossible to distin
guish between good students and
those who are truly outstanding.
The ultimate victims of grade
inflation are graduate schools and
employers who cannot adequately
evaluate the abilities of a student rel
ative to his or her peers. This hurts all
students, regardless of where they
might be relative to the mathematical
average.
In addition to a student’s grade,
the new context grading system pro
vides the average grade given in the
section of the class in which the stu
dent was enrolled, as well as a break
down of all grades awarded in the
section.
With this information, every
graduate school will be able to know
just what every instructor’s grades
are worth and just how well the stu
dent performed relative to his or her
^vviu uiv v/vivin ivavavi J liluiVV/
their grades meaningful by making
their A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s and F’s mean
what they were intended to mean.
Every other university will know
IU’s grades carry real meaning and
will have to adopt a similar system in
self-defense. In this way, IU will
make history.
No longer will inflated grades
fool anyone - teacher, student or
graduate school - with respect to the
quality of an individual student’s
work.
Inflated grades will no longer
make students look good; rather, they
will make instructors and depart
ments look bad.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of
the Spring 1998 Daily Nebraskan. They
do not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its
employees, its student body or the
University of Nebraska Board of Regents.
A column is solely the opinion of its author.
The Board of Regents serves as publisher
of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by
the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The
UNL Publications Board, established by
the regents, supervises the production
of the paper. According to policy set by
the regents, responsibility for the editorial
content of the newspaper lies solely in
the hands of its student employees.
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Haney’s
VIEW
<
Confronting the enemy
After all the pain he and his family
have endured this past week, my friend
Steve Cockson is to be commended for
having the courage to confront the
enemy that took his sister Laura.
Steve and his family have stayed
strong in a time of tragedy that would
have broken most.
The truth is drunken driving and
those who do it will never again be
seen in the same light by those of us
who knew and adored Laura. No
longer will we shrug at the inebriated
driver fumbling for his car keys; no
longer will we roll our eyes at die social
leaders who demand tougher penalties
for intoxicated drivers.
Laura was one of my sister’s dear
est friends. So, candidly, it is difficult
to say which hurts the heart more: the
image of Laura’s mangled car or the
fact that Jeffery Ireland - a repeat
uueiiuer, evaaer oi me taw ana me man
responsible for Laura’s death - could
very well walk away from his deed
having served only a few years behind
bars.
In the days and months to follow,
there will undoubtedly be calls for
Ireland to pay the ultimate price for his
deed, at the cost of his own life. I will
not argue with those calls.
Perhaps the only way to reduce the
number of drunken drivers is to send
the strongest of possible messages: If
you take a life while driving intoxicat
ed, you automatically forfeit your own,
with the assistance of the state.
As of now, our Legislature is quick
to go after cigarette smokers and the
tobacco companies. Yet Nebraska law
makers, with the state’s lax punishment
for drunken drivers - even repeat
offenders - show little desire to deter
inebriated drivers from getting behind
the wheel or make them suffer severely
after they do.
How many more like Laura
Cockson must die at the hands of char
acters like Jeffery Ireland before state
leaders show a true commitment to
protecting Nebraska’s sons and daugh
DN
LETTERS
ters from drunken drivers? The bottom
line is Nebraska law doesn’t treat
drunken driving like the violent crime
it is.
Let Laura’s death serve as the final
wake-up call to Nebraska and its lead
ers. The time has come to take serious
ly the obligation we have to protect the
innocent from those who drink and
then drive.
What a tribute it would be to Laura
Cockson if Nebraska was to take the
lead in imposing the nation’s harshest
penalties against intoxicated drivers.
She and the hundreds of other innocent
Nebraskans who have lost their lives to
drunken drivers deserve nothing less.
In die meantime, I pray that my fel
low Nebraskans and friends from
Saline County will come together to
console Steve Cockson and his family,
and keep the memory of Laura
Cockson alive forever.
Specialist Jamie Karl,
UJS.Army
Fort Benning, Georgia
Thanks for the memories
I would just like to say thank you to
Shannon (Heffelfinger) for publishing
her tribute to Laura. In my opinion it
was one of the nicest, most well-writ
ten tributes that I have ever read.
It truly described Laura as who she
was. I think those who attended the
funeral on Wednesday and read the
tribute can associate with it as much as
lean..
Laura was carefree, but, at the
same time, she was focused on her
future. She made everyone around her
laugh. This is a tribute that I can read
years down the road and remember
exactly who she was.
I hope justice will be served and
that those who were closer to her than I
was will recover from the loss of such a
wonderful person.
Clark Otte
junior
mechanical engineering
Paris this!
Now let me see if I have this
straight:
During the past several years, we
have tom up a number of parking lots
on campus and in the area immediately
surrounding campus. (I count five, but
I might be low.)
That means you and I have been
paying the same amount of money for
a greatly reduced number of parking
spots.
Now we learn we are going to start
paying even more for those fewer
spots.
And the justification is that they
will use our money to (guess what?)
build more parking lots.
Could this be a conspiracy put
together by parking lot contractors? Or
is it just one more example of some
one s brilliant solution to what has
become a serious problem? (I can
almost hear it now: “I know! Let’s raise
the parking rates so that we can just
keep perpetrating this cycle of tearing
up parking lots and building new ones
for the next 30 years!”)
Has anyone considered building
on-campus bike trails so that we don’t
have to live in mortal fear of being run
down every time we use a sidewalk?
Trails would encourage more peo
ple to bring their bikes to campus,
thereby reducing the number of cars.
Another solution: Require fresh
men to leave their cars at home or park
them off campus. Many large universi
ties have done this for years. Why not
UNL? Tearing up old and then building
new parking lots cannot and will not
solve the parking problem. Period.
Jan Kauffman
associate director
Nebraska Human Resources
Institute
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