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46-411: Any first-year student with a GPA of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale, or rank in the top 20% in his or her class, at the end of a full curricular period is eligible for membership, provided that student has taken normal academic coursework. Once inducted, membership is conferred for life, and members are not required to maintain a 3.5 GPA. At certain universities, including Emory University , the minimum GPA

92-456: A 4-point scale, and some historians say this is the origin of the standard modern American GPA scale. Bob Marlin argues that the concept of grading students' work quantitatively was developed by a tutor named William Farish and first implemented by the University of Cambridge in 1792. That assertion has been questioned by Christopher Stray, who finds the evidence for Farish as the inventor of

138-780: A Congregationalist minister. In 1768, Stiles was elected to the American Philosophical Society . In 1784, he was elected an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati of Connecticut, one of the first so honored, for his ardent support of the Patriot cause . In 1752, Stiles traveled to Newport, Rhode Island , for his health. During his trip, the city's Trinity Church —the largest Anglican congregation in New England—sought Stiles to serve as its minister, offering him

184-533: A Party College." Stiles continued to work towards his vision of a non-sectarian institution after the establishment of Rhode Island College, presenting in 1770 a petition for the establishment of another college in Newport. Stiles struck up a close friendship with Haim Isaac Carigal of Hebron during the Rabbi 's 1773 residence in Newport. Stiles' records note 28 meetings to discuss a wide variety of topics from Kabbalah to

230-407: A course. Grades can be expressed as letters (usually A to F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), percentages, or as numbers out of a possible total (often out of 100). The exact system that is used varies worldwide. In some countries, grades are averaged to create a grade point average ( GPA ). GPA is calculated by using the number of grade points a student earns in a given period of time. A GPA

276-537: A major role in the establishment of Brown University (then Rhode Island College). According to Edmund Morgan, in Rhode Island's religious diversity Stiles "saw an opportunity to join with Christians of other denominations in a project which would exemplify their common faith in free inquiry.... a college in which the major religious groups of the colony should unite in the pursuit of knowledge." In 1761, Stiles, along with William Ellery Jr. and Josias Lyndon , drafted

322-590: A new residential college in his honor: Ezra Stiles College . The college is noted for its design by modernist architect Eero Saarinen . Stiles' upholstered armchair is currently in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut . The chair was made in Newport, Rhode Island . Stiles married twice (Elizabeth Hubbard and Mary Checkley Cranston) and had eight children. Stiles' son Ezra Stiles, Esq.,

368-525: A petition to the Rhode Island General Assembly to establish a "literary institution". The editor of Stiles's papers observes, "This draft of a petition connects itself with other evidence of Dr. Stiles's project for a Collegiate Institution in Rhode Island, before the charter of what became Brown University." There is further documentary evidence that Stiles was making plans for a college in 1762. On January 20, Chauncey Whittelsey, pastor of

414-470: A salary of £200 sterling. Stiles rejected the offer and departed from the city, writing "that all his Art and Address and fine offers were ineffectual." In 1755, the Second Congregational Church of Newport likewise sought out the young minister. In August, after serving in an interim capacity, he joined the church as for a salary of £65 Sterling. In the later months 1756, a clapboard house

460-520: A single nation can vary in their grading systems as well. However, several international standards for grading have arisen recently, such as the European Baccalaureate . Ezra Stiles Ezra Stiles (10 December [ O.S. 29 November] 1727 – May 12, 1795) was an American educator, academic, Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He is noted as the seventh president of Yale College (1778–1795) and one of

506-485: A student with financial aid or a scholarship. Grades are seen as an indicator for academic success and ability, and GPA is thought to indicate future job effectiveness and success. In addition, research has shown a correlation between GPA and future Job satisfaction . Studies have also shown that a higher GPA leads to a higher income. Students were given assessments as far back as 500 B.C. but no methods existed to formally measure student performance or track mastery of

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552-493: Is a 3.9 on a 4.0 scale. Annually, Phi Eta Sigma provides $ 300,000 total in scholarships to members across the country. There are $ 1,000 awards and $ 5,000 scholarships for undergraduate study, as well as $ 7,000 scholarships for the first year of graduate study. Members of Phi Eta Sigma must apply to receive these awards. Phi Eta Sigma also awards the Thomas Arkle Clark Graduate Scholar Leader of

598-453: Is more interested in a topic, has learned to deal better with failure and whether he has developed new ideas cannot be answered with grades. Instead, Precht suggests a differentiated written assessment of the students' learning and development path. In his opinion, the grading system comes from a psychologically and pedagogically uninformed era and does not belong in the 21st century. German educational innovator Margret Rasfeld criticizes

644-498: Is often calculated for high school , undergraduate , and graduate students. A cumulative grade point average ( CGPA ), is the average of all the GPAs a student has achieved during their time at the institution. Students are sometimes required to maintain a certain GPA in order to be admitted to a certain academic program or to remain in that program. Grades are also used in decisions to provide

690-512: The General Assembly of the State of Connecticut in 1783. He stated that "a monarchy conducted with infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence is the most perfect of all possible governments." In 1778, Stiles was appointed president of Yale, a post he held until his death. He freed Newport on June 9, 1778, as he prepared to move to New Haven ; he would in 1782 hire his former slave for $ 20 a year and

736-580: The Charter written by Stiles and Ellery was adopted by the Rhode Island General Assembly on March 3, 1764, in East Greenwich . In drafting the document, Stiles combined broad-minded public statements defining Rhode Island College as a "liberal and catholic institution" in which "shall never be admitted a religious test" with private partisanship: his draft charter packed the board of trustees and

782-658: The First Church of New Haven, answered a letter from Stiles: The week before last I sent you the Copy of Yale College Charter ... Should you make any Progress in the Affair of a Colledge, I should be glad to hear of it; I heartily wish you Success therein. Stiles agreed to write the Charter for the college, submitting a first draft to the General Assembly in August 1763. A revised version of

828-656: The Native Americans of New England. In 1761, he visited a Native American village in Niantic, Connecticut , where he recorded notes on the traditional construction methods of wigwams . Stiles additionally documented information on the languages and petroglyphs of New England's native peoples. According to archaeologist Edward J. Lenik, Stiles "produced one of the most important early records of petroglyphs and American Indian life in New England." Stiles left Newport in 1776 prior to

874-791: The United States and the Biblical nation of Israel . Stiles refers to the US as an "American Israel, high above all nations which He hath made, in numbers, and in praise, and in name, and in honor", suggesting that the White Americans are like the Chosen People of Israel. He opined that "in God’s good providence" Indians and Africans "may gradually vanish", thus ensuring that "an unrighteous SLAVERY may at length, in God’s good providence, be abolished and cease in

920-438: The United States in 1971. It has been criticized that grades are only short-term snapshots of how much a student has learned in a given period of time, which only partially reflect the actual performance and does not take sufficient account of the individual development of students. Likewise, poor grades over a longer period of time would give students the impression that they would learn very little or nothing, which jeopardizes

966-611: The Year Endowed Scholarship, named in honor of the founder and first Grand President of Phi Eta Sigma. This scholarship is a $ 10,000 award presented yearly to the member whom the Scholarship Committee determines to best exemplify the ideals of Phi Eta Sigma. In 2020, the first ever $ 10,000 James E. Foy - John W. Sagabiel Undergraduate Scholar Leader of the Year Award will be presented to an undergraduate student member of

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1012-580: The arrival of British troops their subsequent occupation of the city. In 1776 and 1777, Stiles served briefly as minister of the Dighton Community Church in Dighton, Massachusetts . In 1777, Stiles became pastor of North Church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire . As pastor, he defended the monarchy as the best form of government in his sermon, entitled The United States elevated to Glory and Honor , to

1058-467: The biennial conventions. The positions include national officers and executive committee advisers and students. They oversee the business of the society, and the national office staff manages general operations. The current executive officers for the 2018–2020 term are: Active and Inactive chapters are: Notes GPA Grading in education is the application of standardized measurements to evaluate different levels of student achievement in

1104-416: The college's freshman class. At Yale, he studied a liberal arts curriculum characterized by an uncertain period of transition between moribund Puritan thought and that of newer thinkers like John Locke and Isaac Newton . Stiles also studied works by Thomas Farnaby , Isaac Watts , and John Ward . According to biographer Edmund Morgan , the young Stiles read "a strange conglomeration of the first-rate and

1150-529: The fellows of the college with his fellow Congregationalists. Baptist members of the Rhode Island General Assembly, to Stiles' dismay, amended the charter to allow Baptists control of both branches of the College's Corporation. Stiles declined a seat on the College's Corporation, writing that Baptists had seized "the whole Power and Government of the College and thus by the Immutability of the numbers establishing it

1196-767: The founders of Brown University . According to religious historian Timothy L. Hall, Stiles' tenure at Yale distinguishes him as "one of the first great American college presidents." Ezra Stiles was born on 10 December [ O.S. 29 November] 1727 in North Haven , Connecticut, to Rev. Isaac Stiles and Kezia Taylor Stiles (1702–1727). His maternal grandfather, Edward Taylor had emigrated to Colonial America from Leicestershire, England , in 1668. Kezia Taylor Stiles died four days after giving birth to Ezra. Stiles received his early education at home and matriculated at Yale College in September 1742, as one of 13 members of

1242-569: The frontiers of knowledge" and his observations "disclosed nothing new". He was more a learner and teacher than an experimenter. Nevertheless, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1781. His book The United States elevated to Glory and Honor was printed in 1783. The book is a transcript of a sermon given to the Connecticut General Assembly , on May 8, 1783. The sermon draws parallels between

1288-522: The indenturing of Newport's two-year-old son until age 24. As president of Yale, Stiles became its first professor of Semitics , and required all students to study Hebrew (as Harvard students already did); his first commencement address in September 1781 (no ceremonies having been held during the American Revolutionary War ) was delivered in Hebrew, Aramaic , and Arabic . By 1790, however, he

1334-414: The innate intrinsic motivation of every child to learn. Children who have already lost their desire to learn and only study for their grades have no reason to continue learning after they have achieved the best possible grade. In addition, poor grades represent destructive feedback for students, since they do not provide any constructive assistance, but only absolute key figures. It is also criticized that

1380-507: The land of LIBERTY." Stiles died in New Haven in 1795, while serving as president. It is false that Stiles is responsible for the addition of the Hebrew words "Urim" and "Thummim" ( Hebrew : אורים ותמים ) to the Yale seal. Indeed, the Hebrew on the Yale seal appears on Stiles' own master's degree diploma from Yale in 1749, decades before he became president of Yale College. In 1961, Yale named

1426-412: The merchants and sea captains of his congregation; in 1756, he sent a hogshead of rum along on a voyage to Africa and was repaid with a 10-year-old male slave, whom he renamed "Newport". Around the same time, he wrote a joint letter with fellow Newport minister Samuel Hopkins condemning "the great inhumanity and cruelty" of slavery in the United States . During his residence in Newport, Stiles played

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1472-447: The numerical mark to be unpersuasive. Stray's article also explains the complex relationship between the mode of examination (oral or written) and the varying philosophies of education these modes imply to both the teacher and the student. The A-D/F system was first adopted by Mount Holyoke College in 1897. However, this system did not become widespread until the 1940s, and was still only used by 67% of primary and secondary schools in

1518-581: The politics of the Holy Land . Stiles improved his rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew , to the point where he and Carigal corresponded by mail in the language. Stiles' knowledge of Hebrew also enabled him to translate large portions of the Hebrew Old Testament into English. Stiles believed, as did many Christian scholars of the time, that facility with the text in its original language was advantageous for proper interpretation. Stiles conducted research on

1564-402: The same evaluation standards". Grading may also reflect the bias of the instructor thereby reinforcing systematic bias. As educators have begun to recognize the potential drawbacks, alternative grading methods, including competency-based assessment, specifications grading, and "ungrading" have become more popular. Most nations have their own grading system, and different institutions in

1610-601: The society whom the Scholarship Committee determines to best exemplify the ideals of Phi Eta Sigma. Phi Eta Sigma has two publications which it distributes to its members each year. The Forum is a magazine published each year containing updates of Phi Eta Sigma's activity, as well as announcements and biographies of scholarship recipients. Hints on Studying and Learning is a popular pamphlet distributed by Phi Eta Sigma to its members. It addresses effective study habits such as preparation for studying; productive reading, note taking, and memorizing skills; as well as suggestions for

1656-659: The subject. In the mid 1600’s Harvard University started to require exit exams to evaluate students, but they were not scored with letter grades. The first record of a grading scale for students was at Yale University. Yale University historian George Wilson Pierson writes: "According to tradition the first grades issued at Yale (and possibly the first in the country) were given out in the year 1785, when President Ezra Stiles , after examining 58 Seniors, recorded in his diary that there were 'Twenty Optimi , sixteen second Optimi , twelve Inferiores ( Boni ), ten Pejores .'" By 1837, Yale had converted these adjectives into numbers on

1702-466: The successful preparation of term papers and preparing for exams. Phi Eta Sigma organizes a biennial convention for its members, advisers, and special guests. Attendee expenses, excluding transportation, are paid for by the national office for a chapter adviser and a student delegate from each chapter. The most recent convention was held in 2018 in Washington, D.C. The executive officers are elected at

1748-537: The system of grades as unhelpful and, in her opinion, the resulting competitive thinking in schools and says: "School is there to organize success and not to document failure." German neuroscientist Gerald Hüther criticizes grades for being responsible for ensuring that students cannot specialize in any topic that they are enthusiastic about and have a talent for, since otherwise their grades in other areas would deteriorate. He also believes that "our society will not develop further...if we force all children to conform to

1794-484: The system of school grades in his book Anna, die Schule und der liebe Gott: Der Verrat des Bildungssystems an unseren Kindern . He believes that numbers from 1 to 6 (the school grading system used in Germany) do not do justice to the personalities of the children. In his opinion, grades are neither meaningful nor differentiated and therefore not helpful. For example, the questions whether a student has become more motivated,

1840-454: The third-rate" authors. He graduated in 1746. Stiles was conferred a perfunctory Master of Arts degree from Yale and became ordained in 1749 after further studies in theology. From 1749 to 1755, Stiles worked as a tutor at Yale. During this period, he drifted away from Calvinism and preached to Native Americans in Stockbridge, Massachusetts . In a 1762 letter, Samuel Johnson notes that

1886-471: The way of thinking, which can often be traced back to the grading system, that bad grades lead to poor future prospects, leads to perplexity, pressure, stress and depression among parents and children. It is criticized that students often do not learn for their future life or out of interest in the material, but only for the grades and the associated status, which promotes bulimic learning . German philosopher and publicist Richard David Precht criticizes

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1932-493: The young Stiles at one point nearly became an Anglican , writing that he "was once on the point of conforming to the Church, but was dissuaded by his friends, and is become much of a Latitudinarian ." In 1753 Stiles resigned from his position as a tutor to pursue a career in law and practice at New Haven . Stiles qualified for the New Haven bar by November 13, 1753, after reading law . After two years, he returned to his service as

1978-780: Was an amateur scientist who corresponded with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin about scientific discoveries. Using equipment donated to the college by Franklin, Stiles conducted the electrical experiments in New England , continuing a practice first begun by his predecessor, President Thomas Clap . He charged a glass tube with static electricity and used it to "excite the wonder and admiration of an audience". He shocked 52 people at once, fired spirits of wine and rum, and caused counterfeit spiders to move about as if they were alive. These were all experiments that had been performed before, and "Stiles seems to have had little genius for pushing back

2024-767: Was constructed for Stiles on Clark Street, across from the meeting house of his congregation. Since 1972, the residence has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places . In September of the same year, Stiles was made Librarian of the Redwood Library and Athenaeum , a position that allowed him access to books at his discretion. During his years in Newport, Stiles kept an informative diary of his life and acquaintances, which detailed—among other things—his association with Portuguese merchant Aaron Lopez . In 1757, Stiles married Elizabeth Hubbard, with whom he had eight children. From time to time, Stiles invested with

2070-688: Was educated first at Yale College, then at Harvard College , where he studied law, graduating in 1778. Ezra Stiles Jr., subsequently settled in Vermont , and served to establish the boundaries between Vermont and New Hampshire . He died prematurely at Chowan County, North Carolina , on August 22, 1784, and his two daughters by his wife Sylvia (Avery) Stiles of Vermont (and formerly of Norwich, Connecticut ) had their uncle Jonathan Leavitt appointed their guardian. Stiles' daughter Emilia married Judge and State Senator Jonathan Leavitt of Greenfield , Massachusetts. His daughter Mary married, in 1790, Abiel Holmes ,

2116-594: Was forced to face failure in instilling an interest in the language in the student body, writing From my first accession to the Presidency ... I have obliged all the Freshmen to study Hebrew. This has proved very disagreeable to a Number of the Students. This year I have determined to instruct only those who offer themselves voluntarily. The valedictorians of 1785 and 1792, however, did deliver their speeches in Hebrew. Stiles

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