Service Academies: Flunk Quota at Annapolis

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So long as an Annapolis senior manages to stay above the bottom 4% of his class, he is as good as an ensign already. Such is the effect of the Naval Academy's unofficial "flunk quota," brought to light last week after a teacher tried to defend his right to fail as many midshipmen as he deemed deficient in scholarship. Though flunk quotas are larger in the lower classes, Annapolis is thus stuck with a grade system that encourages students to coast. Moreover, not only Fs but also Ds are frowned on, and grades are regularly inflated to achieve C averages—all, says an academy spokesman, because of the "practical necessity of graduating reasonable numbers of naval officers."

Ironically, grade fixing is a byproduct of the academy's curriculum reform and scholastic upgrading launched in 1959 to bring Annapolis up to the level of the best U.S. colleges. The number of courses was raised from 40 to 200; the proportion of civilian teachers was pushed up to 51%. In the fall of 1963, it became apparent that under toughened standards flunkouts would almost triple. Academic Dean A. Bernard Drought, who came to Annapolis from Marquette, instituted what he thought would be a temporary flunk quota to keep the midshipmen afloat.

The Admiral's Son. Just before Christmas last year, Assistant Professor Kent Ponder, 34, a Spanish teacher, handed out a flock of Fs, including one to Midshipman Donald Minter, the son of a retired admiral who once headed Annapolis. Superintendent Rear Admiral Draper L. Kauffman, 54, a much-decorated World War II frogman, called in Ponder and several other teachers to discuss Minter's scholastic difficulties—"not in an official capacity, but as a friend of the boy's dad." A few days later Captain Robert S. Hayes, head of the language department, ordered Ponder to conform to the flunk quota. Ponder refused: "I won't do it. I won't permit it to be done." He was thereupon flunked as an unsatisfactory teacher; his contract lapses in June.

Still, Ponder kept bucking the system. In the semester finals he flunked six students including Minter. History Professor Robert Seager, the chairman of Annapolis' newly created chapter of the American Association of University Professors, upheld Ponder's position, insisting that grading is "an academic function and must be the prerogative of the individual teacher."

Rambunctious Adolescents. The flap over grade fixing brought into the open the smoldering feud between the civilians on the faculty and the Navy. Many of the civilians feel like "second-class citizens," and a number have resigned. One of those quitting in protest, English Teacher Richard C. Vitzthum, 29, accused the academy of treating its "civilian faculty as a commodity which it has bought like provisions for the mess hall." Paradoxically, despite the protection of the flunk quota, overall attrition is high: 35% of the average freshman class of 1,300 drops out by graduation. One reason is the hazing that "plebes" (freshmen) and "youngsters" (sophomores) get, which many regard as anachronistic.