The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

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Sundial Update

Former IBM executive named interim Chief Information Officer

CSUN President Jolene Koester announced Sept. 27 the appointment of former IBM executive Bob Moulton to the position of interim Chief Information Office in Information Technology Resources. Moulton, a University of Illinois graduate, who has held a variety of regional- and national-level executive positions at IBM, helped lead IBM’s North American Higher Education Consulting Practice for several years. Moulton will fill a position now held by Spero Bowman, who had been splitting his time between the CIO position and being associate vice president for Academic Resources at CSUN. Koester wrote in an e-mail Sept. 27 that Moulton would lead the division of ITR and oversee implementation of the recommendation from this summer’s assessment that consultants conducted of information technology services at CSUN. One of the projects Moulton will be the head of is the ITR Help Desk as it rebuilds into a more effective operation, Koester wrote.

Panhellenic Council members plan series of recruiting events

Delta Delta Delta, a member of the Panhellenic Council, is hosting a “sorority exchange” at 7 p.m. at the Tri Delta House Thursday night. Tri Delta is recruiting any CSUN women who may be interested in rushing. The Tri Delta house is at 17739 Halsted Ave. in Northridge. On Sept. 30, Kappa Kappa Gamma will host its belly flop contest at the Kinesiology Pool between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Alpha Omicron Pi will have their A.O. Pie Night in October. Any person who brings in canned goods will be given a slice of pie. Canned goods will be donated to Meet Each Need with Dignity, or MEND, a Pacoima-based volunteer organization that focuses on helping residents of the northeast San Fernando Valley. The Panhellenic Council has its weekly meetings on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. in the University Student Union Flintridge Room.

Some students give Princeton an ‘F’ for quota grading policy

Geoff Mulvihill

Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)

Princeton University bigwigs are lauding the fact that fewer students got “A’s” last year. To them, the falling grades do not mean that the students are less capable or lazier, but that a year-old policy designed to hold grade inflation in check is working.In the 2003-04 school year, 46 percent of grades given to undergraduates were “A-plus, A or A-minus.” Princeton wants to bring that down to 35 percent. It got about halfway there last year, when 41 percent of grades were in the “A” range. Princeton’s efforts are among the most ambitious among elite schools trying to rein in the awarding of uniformly high grades, which some academics see as cheapening grade-point averages. Student leaders fought the policy, worrying that lower grades would keep them out of top graduate schools, and that the policy would increase competition for the smaller number of top grades available. Nancy Malkiel, dean of Princeton College, said she did not see any of those problems or any other side-effects with the new policy. Malkiel said the culture of routinely giving high grades seems to be changing at the Ivy League university consistently ranked among the nation’s best. There will be no changes to the grading policy this year as each department continues to work to meet the quota. “If each division achieves as much progress in the coming year as they did last year, we will have achieved our goal,” Malkiel said yesterday. In humanities classes, for example, top marks previously went to about 56 percent of students. Last year, it was 45 percent. In the natural sciences, where good grades traditionally were hardest to come by, top grades held steady at about 36 percent. Leslie-Bernard Joseph, president of the Undergraduate Student Government, said Sept. 27 that students are still not happy with the policy.

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