Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO investigated two incidents occurring at the U.S. Naval Academy's (USNA) electrical engineering department, focusing on the effect on faculty of the: (1) removal of the chairman of that department; and (2) decision to administer a final examination that may have been compromised.
GAO found that: (1) after almost half of midshipmen received unsatisfactory grades in introductory electrical engineering courses for nonmajors, the academic dean advised faculty to raise the grades in those courses; (2) the academic dean, citing a need for new leadership to improve student performance, removed the chairman of the department after he refused to raise grades; (3) the superintendent, citing his faith in the honor system, did not allow the faculty and the academic dean to delay a final examination after break-ins occurred in two faculty members' offices; and (4) there was no evidence of mass cheating on the examination. GAO also found that: (1) faculty members felt that the administration had improperly infringed on their role in academic matters; (2) the academic dean accepted a faculty-written policy statement supporting faculty autonomy in awarding grades; (3) some faculty members expressed concerns that the grades they gave could affect tenure decisions and performance ratings; (4) in response to the low grades in introductory electrical engineering courses, the academy shifted some first-semester course material for nonengineering majors to the second-semester course, deleted some material from the second-semester course, used an easier textbook, reduced the number of homework problems, and composed final examinations exclusively of previously assigned homework problems; and (5) it could not determine whether the higher grades obtained since those changes resulted from the lessened course difficulty and lenient grading practices.
