EDITORIAL: Missing the Point

In deciding to restrict access toIn deciding to restrict access toold exams, the Council of Under-In deciding to restrict access toold exams, the Council of Under-graduate Deans has failed to ad-In deciding to restrict access toold exams, the Council of Under-graduate Deans has failed to ad-dress students' educational needsIn deciding to restrict access toold exams, the Council of Under-graduate Deans has failed to ad-dress students' educational needs__________________________________ On February 1, Santirocco announced a new policy that required students enrolled in College courses to get faculty permission if they wished to view old tests to study for exams. His reasons for doing so? Some professors said they were unaware their exams were available at the Tutoring Center. Others complained that the availability of old exams amounted to "cheating." This decision was immediately met with cries of protest from students who felt the decision was grossly unfair. Santirocco now claims to have solved the problem by requiring professors to inform the Tutoring Center whether they want their exams on file or not. In effect, this would shift the burden of obtaining exams from students to faculty. In addition, the policy now extends to all four schools, not just the College. Not only is this "solution" not a solution, it does nothing to address the inherent problem at hand: students should have every right to access old exams. Santirocco's new policy is still full of the same problems and contradictions that afflicted the previous one. Students in fraternities and sororities that have old exam files still have unfair advantages, because they will have access to past exams, unlike the rest of the student body. Also, many times the same course is taught by several professors. What prevents one professor from granting access to old common exams while another denies it? But the true underlying issue is one of sheer laziness. As long as professors take teaching seriously and change their exams each year, allowing students to view old exams is not an issue. But if faculty are too busy lobbying for research grants and squabbling over tenure, if they lose sight of their primary objective and simply use the same exams over and over again, then yes, it becomes a serious problem. Not allowing students to have universal access to old exams virtually encourages professors to recycle exams, and insures students a stale education for years to come. Everyone, from students to the manager of the Old Exam file, has criticized this policy. Yet Santirocco and his cronies have disregarded public sentiment, paying little more than lip service to student concerns -- were any students even involved in the Deans' decision? Taking an unfair policy and extending it to every undergraduate school does not make it any more fair. All it does is make it all the more convenient for some whining professors who are too lazy to write new exams every twelve months. We expect a little more from an Ivy League institution.