This professor is making some very serious claims about grades being changed on the back end.
He wrote this for the Kansas City Star:
Missouri university I teach at changed my students’ grades without askingIf you’re a parent sending a student to the University of Missouri-Kansas City or Metropolitan Community College — or to Mizzou, Missouri State or Lincoln University — you probably assume one simple thing: The professor who teaches the class decides the final grade.But that assumption isn’t guaranteed anymore. When grades and hiring decisions are routed through learning management systems, human resources portals and workflow tools, real authority can shift from the classroom to whoever holds back-end access.Kansas Citians have watched Jefferson City debate higher education through funding formulas, curriculum fights, and diversity, equity and inclusion restrictions. Those debates matter. But there’s a quieter question with just as much impact on Kansas City students and taxpayers:Who actually controls academic decisions — especially grades and faculty hiring — when those decisions are executed inside administrative software systems?When shared governance is reduced to permissions and policy fine print, it stops being a living principle. The American Association of University Professors has long argued that faculty should have primary authority over curriculum and grading. (See the organization’s Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities at aaup.org)I’ve seen the stakes up close at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. According to internal records and court filings, failing grades I entered for plagiarism-related work were later changed to passing grades through the back end of the school’s learning management system — without my consent. An executive committee review by Lincoln’s faculty governing board independently confirmed the faculty followed university procedures and respected student due process — yet the grade changes still proceeded. Faculty search decisions were also overridden by nonacademic offices. After I objected through internal channels and asked for clear, faculty-run processes, I was placed on administrative leave and my courses were reassigned.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY