Over half the student body makes dean’s list

Bonaventure declines request for grade distribution and GPA data

After the fall 2018 semester, 946 undergraduate students made St. Bonaventure University’s dean’s list. With the undergraduate enrollment at 1,825 students last semester, this means that 52 percent of students received this academic honor. In order to qualify for the dean’s list, students must earn a 3.25 GPA or better.
Some faculty members were surprised to hear that over half of the student body had made it on last semester’s dean’s list.
Dr. Stephanie Vogel, assistant professor of psychology, said she was shocked to learn how many students were on the dean’s list. “I’m not sure why the university has not changed our cutoff,” said Vogel.
Dr. Althea Kaminske, assistant professor of psychology, joined Vogel in saying she was surprised at the number of students on the list.
She said, “I am a little surprised to hear it’s 52 percent [of students], but I don’t know if that’s a bad surprise or a good surprise.”
However, Mike Kasperski, an accounting lecturer, said that he wasn’t surprised to hear that over half the university qualified for the dean’s list. He said that Bonaventure has extraordinary students who continue to push themselves academically.
Ann Lehman, associate vice president for academic affairs, said that the number of students on last semester’s dean’s list was “not an unusual number.”
Jamie Bjarnar, a freshman who has not yet declared his major, guessed that about 300 students would be on the list. He was shocked to learn that over half of the student body had a spot on the list.
Elyse Kuhn, a junior childhood studies major, said that she does not feel it has been historically difficult to earn a place on the dean’s list since she began at Bonaventure, even though she herself did not qualify last semester.
In a 2008 E-News bulletin for St. Bonaventure parents, Dr. Michael Fischer, then provost, said that on average, 38 percent of students made the dean’s list each semester. That figure has now increased by 14 percentage points.
Kaminske also serves as chair of the Faculty Senate’s Academic Standards Committee. She said that since she began her term as chair in 2016, changing the cutoff for the dean’s list has not been brought up in Faculty Senate.
In 1978, the dean’s list cutoff was changed from 3.0 to 3.25, a year after nearly half of Bonaventure students made the Dean’s List, according to a comment made by Dr. Al Nothem, then vice president for academic affairs, in a 1978 issue of The Bona Venture.
There has not been a change in the dean’s list cutoff since then. However, competing schools such as Duquesne University, Siena College and Canisius College have set their Dean’s List cutoffs at 3.5.
Many students feel that Bonaventure’s cutoff should be raised.
“I think the standards should be held a bit higher… I think Bonaventure should definitely consider raising the cutoff,” said Mary Esposito, a freshman biochemistry major.
“I think the GPA cutoff for the dean’s list should be around a 3.5. I think it inspires students to work a bit harder, as well,” said Ava Gurney, a junior marketing major.
Kevin Balkin, a freshman accounting major, said, “I think it might be a little too easy to get that honor. Maybe, in addition to the dean’s list, [the university] could make a higher honor for kids who are up top.”
Kasperski, who serves as the faculty athletic representative, said the average athlete GPA for the fall 2018 semester was a 3.302. He said that 62 percent of athletes made last semester’s dean’s list.
The average GPA at Bonaventure has begun approaching the current dean’s list cutoff. According to a comment made by Dr. Denny Wilkins, professor of journalism, in a 2011 issue of The Bona Venture, the average undergraduate GPA at Bona’s was a 3.006 for that year.
When asked about last semester’s average GPA, Lehman would not comment.
Lehman also did not respond to a formal, written data request for average GPA and grade distribution data.
The university’s unwillingness to release average GPA data has affected faculty research in the past.
“In 2014, I attempted to do a study looking at grade inflation and academic entitlement,” said Vogel. “I wanted to find some general GPAs for school-wide programs, and then I was going to sample academic entitlement in students in those schools to see whether or not they were correlated. I was told that [the university] would not release average GPA data, at all.”
The university’s refusal to share that data leaves students and faculty wondering.
“I’m surprised that we wouldn’t be able to release that data in aggregate,” Kaminske said.
Releasing data in aggregate refers to holistic data sets that do not apply specifically to any single student.
“It would be nice to have numbers to know how kids are doing here,” said Gurney. “It would be interesting for that kind of information to be out to students and teachers.”