Professor Lets Students Choose Their Own Grades For "Stress Reduction"

Authored by Anthony Gockowski via CampusReform.org,

A University of Georgia professor has adopted a “stress reduction policy” that will allow students to select their own grades if they “feel unduly stressed” by the ones they earned.

According to online course syllabi for two of Dr. Richard Watson’s fall business courses, he has introduced the policy because “emotional reactions to stressful situations can have profound consequences for all involved.”

As such, if students feel “unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course,” they can “email the instructor indicating what grade [they] think is appropriate, and it will be so changed” with “no explanation” being required.

“If in a group meeting, you feel stressed by your group’s dynamics, you should leave the meeting immediately and need offer no explanation to the group members,” the policy adds, saying such students can “discontinue all further group work” with their remaining grade being “based totally on non-group work.”

Similarly, when it comes to “tests and exams” for Watson’s “Data Management” and “Energy Informatics” courses, all will be “open book and open notes” and “designed to assess low level mastery of the course material" (the "Stress Reduction" section has been removed from both syllabi, but an archived version of the "Data Management" syllabus has been provided here). 

Finally, for in-class presentations, Watson will allow “only positive comments” to be made, while “comments designed to improve future presentations will be communicated by email.”

Watson, notably, does concede that “while this policy might hinder the development of group skills and mastery of the class material,” those outcomes are ultimately a student’s “responsibility,” though he promises to “provide every opportunity for [students] to gain high level mastery.”

Campus Reform reached out to Watson - a “Regents Professor” at the university, a title “bestowed by the Board of Regents on truly distinguished faculty” - but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Drugs Are Killing More Americans Than Road Crashes

So much for the so-called "war on drugs"... The United States has been gripped by a heroin and opiate epidemic with user numbers recently hitting a 20 year high.

In 2014, the number of U.S. heroin users passed the million mark with deaths from overdoses rising steeply. And as Statista"s Niall McCarthy writes, drugs are now killing substantially more Americans every year than car crashes.

In 2004, 30,711 deaths were drug related compared to 42,836 in
motor vehicle accidents. A decade later, drug-induced deaths reached
49,714 while road crash deaths fell to 32,675.

You will find more statistics at Statista

As well as the cheap suppy of heroin, legistlation aimed at eliminating prescription opioid abuse has actually added to the problem. It involved changing the texture of the pills to make them more difficult to crush and inject into the bloodstream. That move made people shift over to heroin in droves. New and deadlier drugs such as Fentanyl are also adding to the overdose epidemic. 50 times more potent than heroin, Fentanyl has created an overdose spike in several north-eastern states and has been named as the drug that killed pop singer Prince earlier this year.