One of my advisors in grad school had the same ability that your colleague had (he was also a "full bull"). At first, I thought he was terrible in the way he "played" his class. Now I see the value of SOME of his techiques.
My grade distribution is probably similar to yours, but it starts out pretty grim: I give 5 exams during the semester (4 regular and a cumulative final). The first is typically pretty hard to set expectations. Usually, I get a lot of drops after the first exam, and more between then and the date they can drop a class "without prejudice". After the drop date, there are plenty of "easy" chances to make up ground.
So, in the end, my GPA for an undergrad course usually ends up at between 2.5 and 2.8, but with a relatively small set of A's and lots of B's and C's. If I've done my job, the F's got the message long before the drop date and bailed. And, everybody else was so depressed after the first two exams that they're happy to get whatever they got.
However, I teach at a state school, so don't get the industrial strength whiners that populate some high-priced institutions.
The data about grades and faculty rank is interesting and not terribly surprising. However, there are exceptions. Out here in fly over country the worst grade inflator in our department is a full professor. All his students are above average. He has the talent to water down the course, but make the students think they have learned a great deal and deserve the A. He gets rave reviews.
For what it is worth here are my strategies for playing the game: I hold the line on As (approximately 25%) but inflate Bs and Cs. I also give very hard exams and then lower posted cutoffs to get the distribution I want. Students rarely complain when the final grade is better than the average would indicate it should be based on the syllabus.
Cynical yes, but it worked for me.
Commenting by HaloScan
