"There's no scientific way to analyze astudent's text," said Brustein. He said thatgrading in the humanities would be destroyed ifreduced to a "true-false" completely objectivemethod.

But one faculty member in English Department,who wished to remain anonymous, offered a muchharsher assessment.

"English professors are wimps," he said. "Thepoint is that evaluating writing is very hardwork, and there are some professors out there thatdon't take their job that seriously."

Another problem with grade inflation is thatstudents who cheer high marks now may run intoproblems later, Brustein said.

"For students it may be immediately good, butnot ultimately good," Brustein said.

The problems of high grading finally take theirtoll on students, Brustein said, when they receivetheir final assessments on the morestrictly-graded honors essays.

For at least the past decade, faculty membershave received a yearly printout showinginflationary trends in student grading.

Mansfield said grade inflation at Harvardoriginated around the 1970s when Harvard firstworked at increasing its Black enrollment. "Ithink at that time professors were unwilling togive a C to a Black," Mansfield.

Mansfield said this prompted professors toinflate all of their grades.

But Eric L. Hunter, an teaching fellow forEnglish 10, said he believes that grade inflationis part of a larger trend in competition for jobsand graduate schools.

"Twenty or 30 years ago you didn't [even] needa college education to get a good job," he said