Publishing the Merit List will recognize students’ achievements despite unusual circumstances

by Tillie Wang, Julia Losey, and Tatumn Eccleston

August 9, 2020

The Committee on Academic Standards (CAS) recognizes the unique and disruptive situation the novel coronavirus has put students in. We realize that the Merit List, in this particular circumstance, will not be fair to all students. However, we still believe that, despite the drawbacks, there are still positive aspects to recognizing students’ academic success. The Merit List should be published for spring 2020 in order to recognize students who persevered and succeeded in the face of unique challenges presented by the pandemic.

While CAS understands that each student left Kenyon to go home to different situations, there should still be an effort to celebrate those who were able to do well despite the circumstances, just as other colleges of the same caliber, such as Wesleyan University and Grinnell College, have. According to Dean of Academic Advising and Support Thomas Hawks, over the previous four semesters, the average number of students on the Merit List is 873. As of July 14, 767 students qualified for the spring 2020 list — only a 12-percent drop.

Furthermore, the Merit List only validates academic achievements for students and their families. Just as there is no harm in not having a Merit List, there is no harm in having one, either. Graduate programs, competitive internships and everybody in the world knows that spring 2020 was the onset of the pandemic and an entire upheaval of traditional educational practices. So why not keep the Merit List, as recognition of these conditions yield no repercussions and it can still appreciate the great academic achievements of students? While many students take pride in their grades privately, the Merit List is an additional recognition from the College itself of academic success. Students have already been notified of their grades, and those interested would have already calculated their status for the Merit List, so taking this achievement away from them now would be a punishment.

While it is true that taking online classes was and still will be a difficult transition, how would getting rid of the Merit List for only the spring 2020 semester allow for equitable recognition of academic achievement? It wouldn’t. There would be no acknowledgement of hard work for students who still persevered through college during the pandemic. Furthermore, does this now mean that the Merit Lists for fall 2020 and spring 2021 will not exist? How could the College justify taking away the Merit List for only one semester of online learning, when the entire 2020-2021 academic year is online for half of the students? All of the academic achievements that students and graduate programs value — such as class rank, honors and departmental awards — would have to be reevaluated if the methods of qualifying students’ grades are brought into question.

Even though many students had to and continue to have possibly unsafe and/or unstable circumstances in their lives due to the pandemic, CAS sincerely hopes that students who excelled academically can still be recognized. Our goal is to acknowledge the successes of Kenyon students in the time of a pandemic. We in no way want to undermine or discredit the challenges that remote learning posed for many students, but, rather, we hope to give those who met the Merit List requirements an opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments. Hopefully in the future a fairer way of celebrating students in times of unique learning circumstances can be determined. But for now, the spring 2020 Merit List should continue to exist to recognize and support the successes of Kenyon students.

This opinion is one of two regarding the existence of a spring 2020 Merit List, which is currently being debated by Student Council. The Council will place great weight on the results of a student-wide poll in making this determination. These two pieces were designed to help students make an informed decision prior to voting in the poll, which they can find here.

2 Comments

Comments for this article have closed. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor for publication, please email us at collegian@kenyon.edu.

Michael Fisher

August 10, 2020 — 12:38 am ET

Is it fair to say that one student was working harder than another if one did not have a stable internet connection? Had to care for sick family? How does the merit list appreciate those that work harder by not failing this past semester despite having to work through tragedy or having to pick up multiple jobs because their parents are now unemployed? Does the merit list acknowledge and appreciate the hard work of those students? Or does it only acknowledge those who were able to get high grades for variable reasons? I think you have a limited definition of what hard work and achievement is in this op ed.

Rory Dreyfus

August 10, 2020 — 12:56 am ET

"Furthermore, does this now mean that the Merit Lists for fall 2020 and spring 2021 will not exist? How could the College justify taking away the Merit List for only one semester of online learning, when the entire 2020-2021 academic year is online for half of the students? All of the academic achievements that students and graduate programs value — such as class rank, honors and departmental awards — would have to be reevaluated if the methods of qualifying students’ grades are brought into question."

Uh - yes. That's kind of the whole idea. Most, if not all, of the distinguishments that Kenyon (and higher ed at large) grants are designed to reward privilege and remain inaccessible to anyone without the time (because they're working several on-campus jobs), connections (because white Americans have, on average, the most racially homogenous social circles of any demographic), emotional security (worn down by racial aggressions, micro and macro, in their everyday lives), or money (for tutors, internships, equipment and materials) that is required to reach the award standards. Yes, the immediate conversation is whether to eliminate the Merit List for this past semester, because a global crisis has exacerbated and made more visible these already-present inequities in the way we evaluate student (and human) achievement. But there is also a broader conversation here about how we can do better going forward. The Merit List should be done away with - permanently.

The statement that there is "no harm" in having a Merit List suggests to me a complete blindness to the conversation about grading policy that Kenyon (and, again, all of higher ed) has been engaged in since March. The reason that a universal pass/fail was implemented by the college is the same reason that the Merit List should be done away with: any students who opted in to the pass/fail option would be seen as having done poorly, or at least not as well as their peers who didn't need to use that option. The same is true for students who do and do not appear on the Merit List.

The distinguishment that a Merit List provides is not primarily a personal feel-good for the students involved. It is a tool. A tool to be employed on resumés, in applications, and during interviews for any number of further opportunities: jobs, internships, graduate programs, you name it. The inequity of the grounds on which the Merit List is judged ensured that students who already have less access to these opportunities because of factors mentioned above, the students who need (and usually deserve) these opportunities the most.

If we truly believe that what the Merit List should be is recognition of students who put in hard work, then it is plainly obvious that is not the case - especially for this last semester. Any student who passed their classes this semester put in work. Many students who didn't pass classes were doing hard work. The Merit List is not, and in its current form never will be, reflective of a student's work ethic, intelligence, or skills. It is instead reflective of the resources a student has. THAT is why 88% of the fall semester Merit List carried over to spring. Not because we all just "persevered."

Publishing the Merit List will recognize students’ achievements despite unusual circumstances

2 Comments

Michael Fisher

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Rory Dreyfus

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