Clearly there is a problem when 49 percent of students graduating from this institution walk away with an A-minus average or higher. Latin honors, which used to be reserved only for the crème de la crème, have turned into a sort of door prize as grade inflation has gotten out of hand with approximately 40 percent of graduating seniors snagging magna on their way out. Personally beneficial or not, it is obvious that such a trend cannot continue if these honors are to remain honorable in any sense, or at least if we do not want to end up the laughingstock of the academic community. Smart as we are, we cannot all be the very best.

One proposal discussed at last night's faculty meeting would limit the cum laudes to the top 50 percent of the graduating class, magnas to the top 25 and summas to the top nine, while definitively separating thesis work from Latin honors. While the most prestigious category, summa, today still requires "high distinction" on a thesis, cum laude and magna were unceremoniously decoupled from thesis work several years back.

Because this proposal is based on class rank rather than straightforward GPA, it would create the sort of academic competition Amherst prides itself on avoiding. When honors are tied to standing in a class rather than an absolute number, neighbors and classmates start to look less like allies than prospective enemies to be outsmarted-an atmosphere not at all conducive to learning. Curbing the problem of grade inflation, rather than changing the standards on which the honors are awarded, might be a simpler, more accessible solution.

The most interesting and potentially helpful statistic comes in about summa: only 7.5 percent of students last year received this most prestigious honor, a number down from its high of 10.3 percent in '96, a telling contrast to the wildly climbing cum laude and magna cum laude categories. If students are required not only to write a thesis but to actually do well on it, far fewer will succeed in gaining Latin honors. As for the problem of weaker candidates writing theses? A simple matter of natural selection (or maybe some artificial weeding) by professors and heads of the department ought to do the trick.

Cum laude should stay based on absolute GPA totals, but anything higher-magna or summa-should require a "high distinction" on thesis work, as well as an absolute GPA total of B-plus/A-minus and A-minus, respectively. This will eliminate class rank competition and will cut down on the amount of magnas and summas that this school is currently mass-producing. And we can still keep cum laude around as the parting gift-thanks for playing, everyone.