As colleges and universities are now being rated on their commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and are rejecting Merit as a holdover of the colonialist, white cisheteronormative, patriarchy, we at the Bear were happy to read Cornell to Phase Out Dean’s List on Rolling Basis. According to the Cornell Daily Sun,

“[The Dean’s List] continuously promotes the centrality of high grades, thereby feeding grade obsession, increasing student academic stress and encouraging students to have a gradecentric approach to their education,” the recommendation stated. “Students may thus be discouraged from exploring the curriculum more broadly and taking more intellectual risks than they otherwise would if not so focused on grades.”

According to one engineering student,

“I didn’t know what the Dean’s List was [before this announcement]…It honestly doesn’t really affect me.”

“They [ranking systems] often do more harm than good…It turned people against each other… and just made [for] a very toxic environment.”

Another student, who received the Dean’s List recognition, said,

“I had to Google what it meant, and it didn’t really matter much to me. [Eliminating the Dean’s List] sounds like a step in the right direction. I think it’s unfair to have a Dean’s List based on letter grades when some professors have different levels of rigor in the way they grade.”

Soon the idea of TIRE-M (pronounced tire-em) will replace MERIT at Cornell. Equity will be established at Cornell where marks will become marx, and test points will be taken from those according to their ability, and given to those according to their needs.