When Matt Reed asked his wise and worldly readers to define “rigor,” I knew that the preliminary work I had already completed for an article tentatively titled “Rigor and Compassion Have No Meaning” was about to be upended.

Even before Reed published his readers’ responses, “compassion” and “rigor” technically did have meaning. However, because the terms are frequently bantered about without context, they are often rendered meaningless. For example, in 2001, Thomas J. Massaro and Mary Jo Bane called on George Bush to act with compassion. And in 2019, Kevin Walling described Hersey as a compassionate company without providing even one example. Lacking a definition from which to judge compassion, anything Bush did was an example of compassionate conservatism because that was how he defined himself. In the same way, Hersey is a compassionate company because its CEO says it is.

There are currently concerns being raised by some academics that rigor is being lost as we respond to the realities of the COVID pandemic. As Beckie Supiano explains “On one side are faculty members worried that students will be harmed if standards slip. On the other are those who center compassion and humanity, who sometimes point out the word ‘rigor’ is connected to the term ‘rigor mortis.’” Unfortunately, as Supiano continues, the lack of clear definitions means that “the two groups of instructors, both of whom care about teaching, are talking past each other.”

Without clear definitions, it becomes too easy for individuals to mischaracterize those on the other side of the debate as Deborah J. Cohan does when referring to the “grace and compassion police, who insist faculty shouldn’t demand very much from students.” It is the tendency to talk past each other that allows William Duffy to argue, when responding to Cohan, that “Rigor, however, is not good pedagogy” and that “the idea that rigor itself is something we should strive for in our teaching is equally questionable.”

Alana Anton does a much better job of responding to Cohan by asking “I would like faculty that have the opinion of rigor over compassion to explain why they believe both cannot exist simultaneously?” As Anton suggests, the rigor vs. compassion debate is a false dichotomy.

Reed found that “While allowing for the contrarian take, the majority of the suggestions [defining rigor] revolved less around course content than around student performance. The key, in most cases, was sustained student engagement.” He concludes that “Actual rigor, as opposed to arbitrary nitpicking, requires thoughtful attention to course design. It’s not just about the content.”

By being both a rigorous and compassionate professor, my job is to “help students understand knowledge and concepts that are complex, ambiguous, or contentious” and to “help students acquire skills that can be applied in a variety of educational, career, and civic contexts throughout their lives” (“Rigor”). Therefore, it is rigorous when I ask students to analyze Man Ray’s Le Retour à la Raison during the first module in my film course even though they have no background in Dadism and even before we have established the criteria for a quality film. But before asking students to risk such a rigorous discussion, there must be a foundation of trust in the classroom that comes from a compassionate approach to teaching.

As I tell my students the first day of class, my courses are designed so that they are almost guaranteed to do well in them. I then describe the policies and procedures which result in the majority of students earning 4.0s. These compassionate pedagogical practices frequently permit me to be more rigorous in my expectations than are some faculty who might cite the high grades my students earn as an example of grade inflation. For example, students in my introductory research class must consult in excess of 20 sources using seven different research strategies before they begin writing their final research papers. A decade ago, while judging entries for a competition, I was surprised at how little research—based on the norms in my classes—some “rigorous” professors were requiring.

Although I am relegating my notes for “Rigor and Compassion Have No Meaning” to the dust bin, I am pleased that Reed and his wise and worldly readers focused on actual student learning and engagement in defining rigor. Except, of course, for the readers of my blog, he really might have–as he likes to claim–the “Best. Readers. Ever.”

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Anton, Alana A. “’I’m the Compassion Police.’” Inside Higher Ed. 31 Aug. 2021.

Cohan, Deborah J. “Upholding Rigor at Pandemic U.” Inside Higher Ed. 25 Aug. 2021.

Duffy, William. “Rigor is BS.” Inside Higher Ed. 22 Sept. 2021.

Massaro, T. J. and Bane, M. J. “Compassion in Action: A Letter to President Bush on Social Policy.” America, vol. 184, no. 8, 2001, pp. 12–15.

Ray, Man. Le Retour à la Raison. 1923. YouTube, uploaded by r0ygbiv24, 12 Jan. 2015.

Reed, Matt. “Readers Respond to Rigor.” Inside Higher Ed. 2 Feb. 2022.

“Rigor.” The Glossary of Education Reform. 29 Dec. 2014.

Supiano, Beckie. “Teaching.” Chronicle of Higher Education. 18 Nov. 2021.

 

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