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Notes -
Students get renowned NYU professor fired for giving low grades
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html
A quarter of students signed a petition that an organic chemistry class was too hard, and the professor teaching it was fired. The professor, Maitland Jones, had taught organic chemistry for decades, at NYU and Princeton before it. He had also written a widely used textbook on it. Causes cited include MJ being an asshole; COVID educational policies; and a general downward trend in student quality preceding COVID. One thing that isn't mentioned is that NYU adopted an SAT-optional test policy for the class entering in 2020.
This is why educational policies matter at every level. As a cohort degrades in quality, downstream institutions face pressure to adapt curricula and policies to satisfy those students. The next downstream organization then faces the same pressure. If the student was good enough to graduate high school, shouldn't they be good enough to go to college? If a student got into a university, shouldn't they be good enough to pass all their classes? If a student graduated from undergrad, shouldn't they have a shot at doctoral and professional degrees? If they got into med school, shouldn't they be able to graduate? If they got an MD, shouldn't they able to be a practicing surgeon?
Some universities, apparently including NYU, use Organic Chemistry as a way to limit pre-med class sizes. My university's version passed around 50%, not because only 50% of students attained the Organic Chemistry ability required of an MD, but because a horde of freshmen sign up for pre-med and you need to whittle that down before they take senior classes and apply for med school. So even if this is an artifact of SAT-optional student quality, in the spirit of busting bottlenecks I'd prefer an Organic Chemistry course to have standards commensurate with every other class.
Sadly, I think this is not part of anyone's motivation to fire Jones. It's likely the adaptation pressure you describe. In my ideal world we'd have good (objective!) standardized tests as our primary gatekeeping mechanism. But for some reason, measuring ability is anathema.
Why do colleges need to whittle down the number of med school applicants?
Ultimately: low med school acceptance rates, caused by lack of residency positions, caused by lack of hospitals, caused by monopolistic pressure, caused by healthcare law. End soapbox.
Locally, I'm not very certain. Some possibilities:
Keep med school acceptance rates up (90% of our pre-med graduates are accepted!)
Keep class sizes for higher level pre-med courses down, to focus effort on the ones likely to make it
Honest good intentions that students not waste their time studying for a profession they'll never be able to take up
Administrators annoyed at all the Juniors switching majors
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