Dear Editor:
Concerning the analysis article “How A College Assignment Became the Latest Battle in the Culture Wars,” I first heard about the controversy from a national news report featuring an interview with the student in question after reading about it online. The news report was of interest to me because I am an OU graduate who became a Christian while a student there. In addition, I have been an online college instructor experienced with students protesting grades and I had a daughter experience an unfair course grade while a college student, albeit not for the same reason as the OU student.
After reading the BNG piece, I accessed the abstract of the article and the instructions for the assignment but could not access the full essay. However, it appears to me the student and instructor live on different planets.
If I were the university investigator for this matter, I would have the following questions:
- Was the assignment made clear by the instructor orally in addition to the written rubric?
- Did the instructor meet with the student to discuss why the student received the grade she did?
- Did any of the other students in the class receive failing grades for the assignment. If so, why?
- Did the student ask questions of the instructor about the instructor’s expectations?
- Have the student and the instructor clashed before in class?
- Has the student clashed previously with other instructors or professors regarding expectations for assignments.
- Did the student receive an opportunity to re-do and resubmit the assignment, either for a reduced or full grade?
Even if the response paper was to be only opinion-based, the opinions expressed by the student need to be appropriate for the assignment. And if the instructor did not want opinions expressed, that needed to be clear.
In the 1967 prison movie Cool Hand Luke, the warden (brilliantly played by Strother Martin) famously quipped, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” I believe what we’ve got here at OU also is a failure to communicate, and this failure over a 25-point assignment never should have made national news. There is something biblical about not being offended about one side of the story without hearing the perspective of the other side.
Joe Marlow, South Lyon, Mich.