Concordia U. Professor Tells Class to Stop Doing Coursework, Gives Every Student an A

A professor at Concordia University Texas has told her students to stop doing their coursework because she will be giving every student an A this semester due to the Chinese virus.

“All, if you’re working on your course work, stop. I am entering A’s for every student,” said English professor Jo McIntosh of Concordia University Texas on Tuesday, according to a report by Campus Reform.

McIntosh is not alone in her thinking, as the university itself has also decided to temporarily waive SAT/ACT entrance exam requirements for admission due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. This will be in effect for incoming classes from the fall 2020 through fall 2021 semesters.

“I made this decision after reviewing each student’s ability to meet the course objectives based on the work you’ve turned in up to this point, and see that each of you has achieved those objectives at some point, or I can assess that you could have achieved those objectives had we stayed on campus this semester,” said McIntosh, according to Campus Reform.

The report added that not all students are pleased with this decision, such as Kalah Reed, who has already put in the effort to earn a 99 percent in McIntosh’s class.

“It’s frustrating to me because I know that not everyone in that class would have earned an A,” said Reed to Campus Reform, adding that there are “people who never showed up” in the McIntosh’s class, and that “peer review work” within the class was of poor quality.

“[I] would not say that everyone would have received an A,” said Reed.

But it appears that not all professors agree with students like Reed, as Columbia University professor Jenny Davidson echoed McIntosh’s rationale in an op-ed for the Washington Post, in which she called on fellow professors to give their students “an automatic A” for the spring 2020 semester, as well as focus on their “emotional demands.”

“It’s time to abandon our preconceived ideas about what needs to happen in a college class for a student to get credit for it,” wrote Davidson, adding that in order to “ease stress on students,” college and universities should “strip down work expectations to the bare minimum,” and “consider giving enrolled students A grades as a default.”

“I wrote to both of my classes a week ago to say that I would give everyone an A based on the work they’d done already,” said Davidson. “Regardless of what my university’s leadership ultimately decides about distance learning, I intend to do exactly that.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.