October 15, 1979. A letter from Jerry. A much beloved professor.
He writes me about a possible protest of a grade given by a hard right wing fundamentalist biology teacher. He gave me a D in a thinking and writing course which had something to do with ethics in the sciences. I was taking it to fulfull a requirement of so many credits in a discipline otherwise foreign to me. If it had been a straight biology course, I wouldn't have minded the "D" - well, I would have minded, but I would have understood. As it was, I was graded purely on my disagreement with him over such pertinent issues as abortion, women's rights and the nuclear family, wherein the former two ideas were destroying the integrity of the latter. Other students in the class, who were in the biology curriculum and needed good grades in all their biology classes for admission to things like med school, did not dare disagree with him since, apparently, not only would he grade them down in this course, he would grade them down in their other courses as well. They would come up to me quietly after class and thank me. I hope something bad happened to him.
I graduated with a magna cum laude. He robbed me of a summa. I think. Don't have the figures in front of me anymore, but it seems I was within a grade point or two of a summa cum laude. Not that a summa would make any difference to my life or my bathroom wall, which currently sports my diploma, festooned with a Grateful Dead sticker.
Jerry writes so beautifully, and reminds me of why I so loved and admired him:
"You should do this, I think, but as I said I believe the argument ought to be developed differently. The order I would suggest: 1) statement that you are protesting the grade; 2) that it is out of line with your record and effort; 3) that it seems based on a conflict of values and approach rather than acceptable standards of intellectual/academic quality (the quality of your work being attestable by your course papers, your general record and your references); 4) that you request your papers be reviewed by other faculty capable of judging your work on the subjects of the course; 5) your analysis of your work; 6) your comments on the conduct of the course, mentioning - but subordinating - the issue of attendance; 7) same last paragraph about honors."
Catch that bit about attendance? I didn't continue with the protest. I was far away in Seattle by then. I was already accepted by the grad school I didn't finish in Pittsburgh. Jerry continues:
"I wish you clear weather for your mountain but please don't surrender your intellectual toughness for any gods (it seems unlikely, but as a teacher I feel obliged to give fussy advice).....Things are wonderfully busy here. Small pleasures, small dangers, but the climate is a compensation for a quiet life. One feels heroic merely by living here."
He was heroic to me.
He writes me about a possible protest of a grade given by a hard right wing fundamentalist biology teacher. He gave me a D in a thinking and writing course which had something to do with ethics in the sciences. I was taking it to fulfull a requirement of so many credits in a discipline otherwise foreign to me. If it had been a straight biology course, I wouldn't have minded the "D" - well, I would have minded, but I would have understood. As it was, I was graded purely on my disagreement with him over such pertinent issues as abortion, women's rights and the nuclear family, wherein the former two ideas were destroying the integrity of the latter. Other students in the class, who were in the biology curriculum and needed good grades in all their biology classes for admission to things like med school, did not dare disagree with him since, apparently, not only would he grade them down in this course, he would grade them down in their other courses as well. They would come up to me quietly after class and thank me. I hope something bad happened to him.
I graduated with a magna cum laude. He robbed me of a summa. I think. Don't have the figures in front of me anymore, but it seems I was within a grade point or two of a summa cum laude. Not that a summa would make any difference to my life or my bathroom wall, which currently sports my diploma, festooned with a Grateful Dead sticker.
Jerry writes so beautifully, and reminds me of why I so loved and admired him:
"You should do this, I think, but as I said I believe the argument ought to be developed differently. The order I would suggest: 1) statement that you are protesting the grade; 2) that it is out of line with your record and effort; 3) that it seems based on a conflict of values and approach rather than acceptable standards of intellectual/academic quality (the quality of your work being attestable by your course papers, your general record and your references); 4) that you request your papers be reviewed by other faculty capable of judging your work on the subjects of the course; 5) your analysis of your work; 6) your comments on the conduct of the course, mentioning - but subordinating - the issue of attendance; 7) same last paragraph about honors."
Catch that bit about attendance? I didn't continue with the protest. I was far away in Seattle by then. I was already accepted by the grad school I didn't finish in Pittsburgh. Jerry continues:
"I wish you clear weather for your mountain but please don't surrender your intellectual toughness for any gods (it seems unlikely, but as a teacher I feel obliged to give fussy advice).....Things are wonderfully busy here. Small pleasures, small dangers, but the climate is a compensation for a quiet life. One feels heroic merely by living here."
He was heroic to me.
