title: UNIV Of GA PROFESSOR Allows Students To CHOOSE THEIR OWN GRADES To Help Alleviate Stress
text: A University of Georgia professor has adopted a  stress reduction policy  that will allow students to select their own grades if they  feel unduly stressed  by the ones they earned.According to online course syllabi for two of Dr. Richard Watson s fall business courses, he has introduced the policy because  emotional reactions to stressful situations can have profound consequences for all involved. As such, if students feel  unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course,  they can  email the instructor indicating what grade [they] think is appropriate, and it will be so changed  with  no explanation  being required. If in a group meeting, you feel stressed by your group s dynamics, you should leave the meeting immediately and need offer no explanation to the group members,  the policy adds, saying such students can  discontinue all further group work  with their remaining grade being  based totally on non-group work. Similarly, when it comes to  tests and exams  for Watson s  Data Management  and  Energy Informatics  courses, all will be  open book and open notes  and  designed to assess low level mastery of the course material  (the  Stress Reduction  section has been removed from both syllabi, but an archived version of the  Data Management  syllabus has been provided here).Finally, for in-class presentations, Watson will allow  only positive comments  to be made, while  comments designed to improve future presentations will be communicated by email.   For entire story: Campus ReformPerhaps someone should give the good professor a ticket to Afghanistan so he can spend time with some of our young, brave, college-age troops who don t get to chose their next assignment because it might be  too stressful  for them.Parents of these students need to start speaking up. We are raising a generation of marshmallows who will have no idea how to handle stress in real life situations. We as a nation, will have no one to blame but ourselves for raising an entire generation of coddled snowflakes with absolutely no coping skills.