When it comes to assessment, treating every student the same is one of the most unfair things a professor can do. Furthermore, living a life of absolutes where all students are expected to do the identical assignments at the same time can actually hinder the educational development of students. And how unfair is that?

Last semester, a student approached me on the second day of our composition class and asked if he could do research on a certain topic; a topic clearly outside the scope of the general theme I had selected for our focus. Furthermore, because I granted the student’s request, he was able to write three fewer papers that the other students in the course. How was this fair?

Those who do not appreciate e.e. cummings’ counsel that “since feeling is first/who pays any attention/ to the syntax of things/will never wholly kiss you” would argue that by allowing the student such deviation from the published syllabus is a disservice to educational standards and unfair to other students. Yet the truly creative, those who understand cummings’ “purely irresistible truth” that the results of two times two is found on the title page of his book Is 5, understand that had I enforced my syllabus like a good little nonmaker, there is no way that this student would have written a 6,400+ word paper that included a works cited list of 23 books, academic articles, and other sources. Nor would he have regularly consulted with two other professors to make sure the research for his interdisciplinary paper was on track.

Being flexible does not mean that we cannot enforce minimal standards. However, being too inflexible means that we can hold students back from reaching their potentials.

To make sure that standards are maintained and students do not become concerned that they are being treated unfairly, projects are public knowledge-at least as far as the other students in the course are concerned. One of the social mores of my classroom is that I can talk with other students about any projects students are doing. Also, throughout the semester in both small and large groups, students discuss the methods and scope of their research with each other. The lack of secrets prevents mistrust from developing.

This semester, I have institutionalized the idea of variability in my syllabi. I have told students in most of my classes that 45% to 50% of their course grade is based on projects that I am refusing to define for them. Instead, after providing the guidelines and other appropriate assessment criteria for the course, I expect them to develop the assessments they will use to demonstrate competency. In addition to designing their own assessment tools, for the most part, students will come up with their own due dates on which to submit the work.

During the semester, students will do equivalent but not identical work. And most will exceed the minimum expectations that the uncreative would try to impose on all students. Some, like my student from last semester, will even do excessive work.

Often, when I hear colleagues complain about the poor quality of research and lack of creativity on the part of today’s college students, I wonder if they provide the flexibility students need to be truly creative. It is easier to teach in the absolute where we provide narrow parameters all students must follow to accomplish the goals of the course. But, in doing so, we can box students into a plan of action that can only result in the types of unimaginative research papers about which we complain.

PHOTO CAPTION: Former Schoolcraft College student Chuck Firment on his graduation from the University of Michigan Dearborn at which he was the student selected to address the graduating class.