Cornell University has begun to phase out its dean’s list to address concerns about academic stress, which has led Ithaca College to begin to reflect on the impact of its dean’s list as well.
After a vote May 27, 2022, Cornell University’s Faculty Senate put a resolution in motion that students who enrolled at Cornell during summer 2023 and after will no longer be able to receive the dean’s list honor. Students who were enrolled prior to summer 2023 will still be able to be on the dean’s list until the end of Spring 2026. The dean’s list causes an increase in academic stress because it perpetuates the standard that learning should be grade-centric, according to Resolution 182 from Cornell’s Faculty Senate.
Cornell sophomore Kathryn Erich said she believes the phasing out of the dean’s list will have a positive effect on the campus community.
“This environment is so cutthroat and competitive and I think removing the dean’s list just reduces that one layer of stress,” Erich said. “Cornell really tries to take into consideration students’ mental health, and I feel like this is one way the school has because it reduces a layer of competition.”
Amy O’Dowd, associate dean of student services in the School of Humanities and Sciences, said the changes at Cornell do not seem as applicable to Ithaca College.
“I don’t see Ithaca College students competing against each other for great grades and academic accolades in quite the same way that Cornell students do,” O’Dowd said. “So it would really be surprising to me if I found out that it was a big mental health issue here.”
According to The Complete Guide to Liberal Arts Colleges, 60% of the students polled who attend an Ivy League school said their campus environment was academically “competitive” to “highly competitive,” whereas 80% of Liberal Arts students said theirs was “collaborative” to “highly collaborative.”
In contrast to the competitive environment of Ivy Leagues, Melanie Stein, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, said Ithaca College strives to create a collaborative environment.
“When we are recruiting students, we describe Ithaca College as a place where the sense of community is paramount and where students create a down-to-earth culture,” Stein said. “We recruit faculty that want to facilitate a collaborative learning environment for students.”
Cornell’s proposal stated that the change would be positive because it would allow students to branch out and take classes out of their comfort zone without feeling like they were risking their dean’s list eligibility.
Dean’s list eligibility is based on a students’ GPA, the number of credits they have taken and their ability to complete each course with a satisfactory grade. Both schools have different requirements within each of their separate undergraduate schools, but Ithaca College does not have a collegewide dean’s list.
At Ithaca College, there is a way to take a class S/D/F, which represents the ability to have your grade be satisfactory, a D or an F. Satisfactory represents any grade above a D, and a D or F are the same respectively. Since any grade in the satisfactory level does not impact students’ GPA, this allows a buffer for a student who does not want a class outside of their comfort zone to impact their GPA in a negative way. If the student receives a D or an F, however, it does impact their GPA.
Rob Gearhart, associate dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications, said he sees the importance of making sure students feel comfortable taking a wide range of classes. Gearhart also said he wants to discuss the way students are recognized for academic achievements in a future meeting with his fellow associate deans.
“This will be a great conversation to have,” Gearhart said. “I don’t know what the outcome will be, but it’s always good to have conversations focused on students.”
Ithaca College sophomore Zoe Ennis was on the Spring 2023 Dean’s List and said she has always seen the dean’s list as a neutral thing. She said her parents were happy she was on the list, but she was going to work hard to get good grades regardless of the accolade. One concern she said she has about the dean’s list is that it only measures grades and not any other form of success as a member of a campus community.
“I do think then it kind of just adds an unnecessary value to your grades and how they determine who you are because I know a lot of those grades come from standardized testing,” Ennis said. “Just because someone doesn’t excel at standard classroom format and they don’t excel at standardized testing, that shouldn’t really define their worthiness when it comes to a resume.”
O’Dowd said that although taking away the dean’s list can have benefits for students, taking away an honor for a student who values academic awards could have a negative impact. O’Dowd made a comparison to an athletic award.
“You could give teammates awards for their effort or for people who are most improved or things like that, but at a different level, they give the trophy for the league championship to the team that wins the most domestic games,” O’Dowd said. “Sometimes it’s appropriate to have a subjective measure, and sometimes it’s appropriate to have an objective measure.”
Stein said Ithaca College has a multitude of awards that are not just based on grades, which is something the college takes pride in.
“Every year, I go to these wonderful award ceremonies over in Student Affairs that are for students who have been engaged in a variety of ways across campus,” Stein said. “We have lots of different ways of recognizing students.”
Cornell University’s Resolution 182 states that the inconsistencies in awards and honors across the different undergraduate colleges were another reason why Cornell cut the dean’s list. Stein said she reflected on that aspect of the university’s decision in terms of how Ithaca College operates.
“Folks in my office are talking with deans and associate deans to gather information so we can have a conversation about what the individual schools are doing and whether or not it makes sense for us to get together to make sure we are doing things in an equitable way,” Stein said.
