Our
Perspective......
Don't underestimate the Mountaineers
"UNC Gives
Opposing Coach Rare Chance," read a headline in The Daily Tar
Heel (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's student newspaper)
about Chapel Hill's trip up the mountain to play us Friday for the
opening of the Seby Jones Arena in the George M. Holmes Convocation
Center.
The rare chance
that The Daily Tar Heel reported was the opportunity for Appalachian
State University's new coach Houston Francher and his Mountaineers
to play Chapel Hill, a rarity among North Carolina colleges. Tar
Heels' head coach Matt Doherty even said in the Daily Tar Heel,
"The reason that we don't play a lot of in-state schools is
that there are a lot of in-state schools, and how do you differentiate
one from another?"
It makes sense
not to play anyone else except Atlantic Coast Conference opponents
in North Carolina. Chapel Hill got a good scare in a two-point overtime
victory over the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 75-73
in 1998. This state, arguably, is the cradle of collegiate basketball.
With so many good teams around, why would Chapel Hill want to tarnish
their record with a defeat from a "lesser" college?
When the illustrious
Tar Heels step in the Holmes Center, we hope they find a way to
fit their heads in. Yeah, they are ranked sixth in the Associated
Press men's basketball poll, but they almost got knocked off by
Winthrop University last Friday by a close score of 66-61.
With the unexpected
NCAA tournament run that took Chapel Hill to the Final Four last
year not included, the Tar Heels have experienced dismal seasons
lately. Last year's regular season record was 22-13 for Chapel Hill,
and before that they were stumped 76-74 by Weber State University
in the 1999 NCAA Men's National Basketball Championship Tournament.
This is significant
for us because, like Weber State and UNCC, Appalachian is rated
as the underdog in the upcoming game. Like they thought with Weber
State, Chapel Hill believes this to be an easy win to let the team
prepare for big boys later down the road like Duke University and
the University of Kentucky. What happened to Chapel Hill is they
have forgotten about losses such as Weber State and close victories
such as Winthrop last Friday and UNCC in 1998.
To be where
they are now, the Tar Heels are simply riding on reputation and
ignoring the fact that they have been on the slide.
We own the home
court. We own this mountain. After facing us, the Tar Heels could
be in for a very long ride back to Chapel Hill Friday night.
COMMENTARY
Grade
inflation at ASU causes concern
Sarah
Sparks
An issue that
has come to the attention of a number of people on campus is the
newly popularized concept of grade inflation. Professors and students
alike are expressing concern for the apparent increasing number
of superior student GPAs, with the simultaneous decline in SAT scores
and other measures of students' abilities.
The problem
has the potential of becoming a serious issue in modern education,
because it indicates that the value of education is declining because
students are making higher grades for lower- quality work. The fact
that grades continue to improve despite evidence that the ability
level of the average student is not improving, shows that the value
of grades are deflating.
The main problem
this presents itself is that intelligent, hard-working students
that earn good grades are having to watch their grades steadily
decrease in value. This phenomenon is unfair to diligent students
because they are in the minority and therefore have little influence
on reforming the problem.
The average
and below-average students, who make up the majority of the student
body at most schools, are not prone to complain about making higher
grades for less work because they feel that higher grades will help
them in the long run. In actuality, though, if all students increasingly
make better grades, good grades will soon carry little weight.
Dr. Ron Coulthard,
an English professor and concerned faculty member, said that he
has seen evidence that companies, graduate schools and other institutions
have begun to place more importance on an interview and/or a written
statement than on a college GPA. The problem, though, is that no
one seems to have any concrete evidence of the issue. There are
several professors on campus, and on many other campuses for that
matter, that are currently investigating the issue in an effort
to prove the theories as fact rather than rumor.
Dr. Robert
Lysiak, associate professor of the English department, said that
from his experience, students are getting higher grades than in
the past, but that he has yet to obtain hard proof. Lysiak is currently
working on collecting information from the registrar's office and
other surveys.
My main concern
about the issue is that, even if it is discovered to be a serious
problem, there will be little action taken to correct the situation.
As it stands,
our school (as well as others) possibly has deceptively high average
GPAs and numbers of students making the Dean's List because of the
inflation of grades. This seems like a positive thing to most students
in the shorter scheme of things, but in the long run, this only
means that the value of education will eventually be worthless.
An immediate
solution to the problem is virtually impossible. The first step
to improving the seemingly declining value of education is to find
out for sure, via research, if this is in fact a large issue.
Once that is
determined, administration and other authority figures must step
back and look at the issue with the mindset that they want to improve
Appalachian State University for prosperity.
Maybe the average
GPA will decline for a few years as students are reintroduced to
the true value of the grading system, but in the long run this change
could greatly improve the value of education at our university.
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