The Danish grading scale is constructed so that ten per cent of students will normally get the top grade 12, one in four will get a 10, etc. In theory, of course, an entire class of students might merit the top grade, if they meet their course requirements entirely.<\/p>\n
All of Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez\u2019 18 students enrolled in the course ‘Transkulturelle Processer’ (Transcultural Processes, ed.) got a 12 for their Spring exam this year.<\/p>\n
And for this – according to management ‘irregular’ – grading Rodriguez was fired – technically terminated – on May 24 from his job as assistant professor at Aalborg University, Denmark.<\/p>\n
On May 20 he received an email from the dean of The Faculty of Humanities at Aalborg University which among other things said:<\/p>\n
\u00bbI consider your assessment and grading procedure for this particular exam to be an intentional disregard of\u00a0your obligations as assistant professor at Aalborg University.\u00ab<\/p>\n
And, further:<\/p>\n
\u00bbThe management finds that it is not coincidental\u00a0that you have awarded the same grade to all students, but rather an intentional act on your part, which means\u00a0that you did not make an individual assessment of each individual exam paper. My decision is also based on\u00a0the fact that the management was made aware that you previously stated that you would award all students the\u00a0grade of 12.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez says that he knows the students well after having taught them over the last two years, and that they are good students. Over time, he says, it has become clear to him that his students are too preoccupied with getting the top grade – 12 – and that they are unable to focus properly on what is most important – i.e. learning and studying.<\/p>\n
\u00bbThey worry about grades, precisely like the university management is only thinking about kroner<\/em>,\u00ab Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez says. \u00bbIt is crazy that universities today are not really thinking about students at all. Most of my colleagues are really worried about all of the points that they need to have from their publications.\u00ab<\/p>\n I told the students: Don\u2019t worry about grades. You will get a 12. You are here to learn …<\/p>\n Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00bbI told the students: Don\u2019t worry about grades. You will get a 12. You are here to learn, and you are paid to do so with public funding. I want you to think about learning. Stop thinking about numbers. Let\u2019s have two hours every week of thinking and learning.\u00ab<\/p>\n But even though Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez says that he let the students know that they would get the top grade in advance, he insists that the grade was merited, and that the students deserved to get a 12.<\/p>\n This is also evident from an email that he sent to dean Henrik Halkier early on May 21 in response to being called to a meeting about his grading:<\/p>\n \u00bbI have not read anywhere that as a professor I was not allowed to give a 12 to the students that deserve it. And in this course, all of them deserve it. I don\u2019t want to think that you just don\u2019t believe that our AAU students are clever enough [to all get] a 12.\u00ab<\/p>\n Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez did not attend the meeting to which he was called by the dean, and shortly afterwards he was fired. He received an official dismissal notice on May 28.<\/p>\n The fact is that Rodriguez had already been fired along with about 100 other employees at Aalborg University in February as part of a general round of cutbacks. He says that many fired AAU professors were offered to continue as lecturers in temporary positions, but that he had declined this offer which he considers to be a precarization of the teaching staff at AAU. Rodriguez\u2019 dismissal period would in any case have expired at the end of May. Now, his employment was abruptly terminated a week sooner.<\/p>\n However, Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez says that he would have given his students a 12 regardless of whether he was set to end his term at AAU.<\/p>\n Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez says that AAU\u2019s students have not been shown any great amount of consideration by university management who chose to fire a number of their professors right before the beginning of the semester. The university, overall, does not, he says, care much about its students’ well-being.<\/p>\n \u00bbMany of my colleagues don\u2019t care about teaching. They would rather get out of it if they could. How is that even possible? I care about the students’ learning. And it is a matter of public interest that they learn.\u00ab<\/p>\n He calls the mass-layoffs at Aalborg University a national scandal, and he says that the university should have saved on expenditures such as conference trips to China rather than cut down on the teaching staff.<\/p>\n \u00bbIt is a highly unlikely outcome that every student in a class gets a 12,\u00ab says dean Henrik Halkier, The Faculty of Humanities at Aalborg University. \u00bbWhat we see in every other discipline is that the grades are distributed across the scale.\u00ab<\/p>\n The dean says that the faculty was given a heads-up earlier this year about possible irregularities in the grading at Transkulturelle Processer, and that management for that reason reacted rapidly upon seeing the many top grades from the course.<\/p>\n \u00bbIn March he [Rodriguez] allegedly indicated to students that they were to expect very good grades. This caused widespread wonder among students, and some of them told management. However, no formal complaint was given,\u00ab says Henrik Halkier.<\/p>\n Henrik Halkier says that if management had known for certain that a professor had promised students a specific grade this would have been cause for an immediate termination of employment.<\/p>\n It is unacceptable to bring Aalborg University in a situation where we are not doing what we must, that is to give a fair assessment of every individual student.<\/p>\n Henrik Halkier<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00bbIt is unacceptable to bring Aalborg University in a situation where we are not doing what we must, that is to give a fair assessment of every individual student.\u00ab<\/p>\n The dean says that had there been a good explanation for Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez\u2019 grading policy this would have emerged at the meeting that Rodriguez declined to participate in.<\/p>\n Henrik Halkier says that he does not accept that the grades given to the Transkulturelle Processer students might represent a form of ideological opposition to the power of numbers, whether kroner, research points or grades, at the modern university.<\/p>\n \u00bbI completely reject this, because it is incompatible with the way we are tasked to run the university. One is free to believe that things ought to be different, but then perhaps the university is not where one should be,\u00ab says Henrik Halkier.<\/p>\n \u00bbIt is not okay to hold the students hostage,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n In a text sent after his interview with The University Post Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez writes that he respects that management has the power to fire him according to the law, but that AAU must respect the grades that he gave the students \u00bbif not for their \u2018skills or knowledge\u2019, at least as an apology for not thinking about them at all.\u00ab<\/p>\n \u00bbParticularly,\u00ab he adds, \u00bbfor firing 100 professors one week before the course started, closing down their department, and not even communicating anything to them.\u00ab<\/p>\n \u00bbThey deserve respect and attention. They deserve an apology. And they of course deserve the 12,\u00ab writes Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodriguez.<\/p>\n The students from Transkulturelle Processer will now get to choose between getting their finished exam essay re-evaluated by a different professor or handing in a new essay, says dean Henrik Halkier.<\/p>\n \u00bbThe university has cancelled the exam. The upside is that the assignment given to the students from the class is OK (an essay on Aalborg city as an imagined utopia, ed.). Therefore we will have a re-evaluation from a different professor. But in light of the fact that the class may have been given to understand that they would receive a mild assessment, the students have been offered to hand in a new essay if they so choose.\u00ab Fired professor says that students needed to focus on thinking and learning rather than getting top grades. Aalborg University management did not agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":86708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[1954,781,1387],"class_list":["post-86671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-aalborg-university","tag-grade-race","tag-grades","expression-news_article"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nDean was prepared for high grades<\/h3>\n
An ideological point<\/h3>\n
New assessment<\/h3>\n
But the many top grades will not be allowed to stand.<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"