Provost's Statement

The Provost released a longer statement about what I said in my email which you can read here: https://provost.asu.edu/rebutting-series-false-claims

I want to address a few things the Provost seems to be confused about.

"The faculty teaching these courses were asked by the department assistant chair to provide input on a ECN 211 and 212 text. Based on that input, the department chair chose the Principles of Economics by Gregory Mankiw for ECN 211 and 212."

Partially true. Input was requested, but the reason for selecting Mankiw was never hidden. It was because Art Blakemore in the Provost's office was partnering with Cengage, and this is their flagship textbook. Allow me to walk you through the chain of events.

This is from a presentation given by Jose Mendez on Tuesday, August 16th, 2016.

In that meeting me and several other faculty members voiced concerns about this deal with Cengage and being required to use MindTap for assignments. On Friday, October 14th, 2016, Jose Mendez followed up with everyone about those concerns, stating:

"Regarding the MindTap requirement, Cara and I conveyed the concerns some of you expressed in the start-of-the-semester meeting to Dr. Blakemore and he has agreed that faculty will not be required to use MindTap in their course. It is your decision to make."

To make this clear: MindTap was a requirement from Dr. Art Blakemore in the Provost's office. Several faculty members, including myself, objected to the ethics of this deal with Cengage. For the time, Dr. Blakemore backed off. I followed up with Jose asking for the details about exactly what is required, and he responded with the following:

"You are okay not requiring MindTap. However, the common, required textbook policy is inflexible. It is department policy to have a uniform course experience throughout our principles courses and our primary tool for ensuring that is through the common textbook requirement. This is Gustavo's policy and I am in full agreement. That doesn't mean that you can't still do your thing, but you need to place it within the framework of the Mankiw text. Use the text as a supplement or as a background source for your material."

But in Fall 2017, when I taught Principles again, I found out that things had changed. Art Blakemore had in fact instituted this requirement. Here is the email exchange I has with Jose in June 2017:

In the Provost's statement he says the following:

"Professor Mankiw’s text has been in publication for more than 20 years and is now in its eighth edition. In keeping with advancements in instruction, a digital version is now commonly used that integrates with an online learning platform called MindTap. That is the version of the Mankiw text that the department chair, with consultation from the faculty, chose as the uniform text for ECN 211 and 212."

False. The claim that it was the department chair and faculty that chose to require MindTap is plainly, totally, and completely false. The evidence above makes that pretty clear. To claim otherwise is nothing less than a cover-up of the very wrongdoing I am attempting to expose.

The Provost also says the following:

"Once the Economics faculty had chosen the Mankiw/MindTap bundle as the uniform text for ECN 211 and 212, ASU was able to negotiate a discount for its students, who pay a total of $93 for the bundled digital book and learning platform."

Administration doesn't seem to get this, but students do. When you require MindTap for assignments every student must pay $93. When you say "The required book is the Mankiw one", students can find used copies, old editions that are just as good, or they can share a copy with friends. Administrators, and frankly a lot of faculty members, don't seem to understand the myriad of ways in which students can reduce this cost of education, and don't seem to care when they close those avenues to them. They pat themselves on the back for negotiating a deal without questioning why Cengage is so eager to provide one. Without this requirement, students buy used books and Cengage gets very little money from the few who buy new. With the requirement, Cengage is guaranteed $93 per student. Economists, of all people, should understand this.

At the end of his statement, the Provost says this:

"Was Brian Goegan required to fail 30% of his students?

No. ASU never requires a professor to fail a certain percentage of students. What caused Brian’s department to talk with him about his grading practices was that he consistently awarded a huge percentage of A and B grades, as compared to the same classes when taught by other professors in his department."

So we agree then. If 30% have to get DEWs, and I don't meet that benchmark, than I will have more ABCs than others who are meeting that benchmark. And the Provost admits that the department thought that was a problem and that I was repeatedly told I needed to meet that benchmark.

I want to be totally clear about this. In the start-of-the-year meeting in August 2018, Jose Mendez went beyond just saying that grading practices should be consistent across professors. He told us that the Provost's office needed us to set a benchmark for some statistic they were using to assess the Adaptive Learning project. That included having 30% DEWs. Jose Mendez told us that across sections for each professor this distribution needed to be pretty much exact. This was beyond addressing grade inflation or using a curve. This was about manipulating statistics - to the detriment of student performance - to benefit the project. That is unethical.

I'll end by quoting the Provost again:

"Brian Goegan was only able to “save” his students these costs by simply refusing to actually use the text and the accompanying MindTap learning platform that his Department of Economics colleagues had decided to adopt as the uniform text for all classes. Over a period of several years, he adopted practices such as listing the text in his syllabus “merely because I have to” and then assigning minimal course credit to using the interactive MindTap platform."

The tone-deafness here is kinda shocking. The Provost doesn't seem to understand that nearly all of these features from MindTap can be replicated with some hard work on Canvas or Blackboard - a platform the students have access to at no additional charge. Also, it is possible to use MindTap and the book while still putting assignments on Blackboard or Canvas - which is what I did. Every section of my class had links to MindTap and to the digital textbook. That way the students who want them can get all those bells and whistles, and the ones who prefer other resources can save the money. The Provost seems to be so indoctrinated by Cengage he has forgotten that there are alternatives. What difference does it make so long as students are learning and succeeding? (Oh, right, the difference is that Cengage and ASU don't get paid and more than the allowed number of students end up succeeding)