Brown University professor Roberto Serrano suspected that his students were cheating when he gave them a take-home midterm exam, so he decided to make the final exam in-person. According to Inside Higher Ed, out of the 86 students enrolled in his class, 18 dropped from the class after he made the announcement, and nine skipped the final exam. Out of the 59 remaining students, three scored zero, and only two students received a grade that’s within 10% of their midterm score, with only one of them performing better in the finals.
Prof. Serrano, who taught Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory (Econ 1170), usually conducted in-person exams for his class. However, the mass shooting on university grounds that happened last December made many students anxious about staying in classrooms, so he thought that it was just appropriate to let them take home exams. When news spread that the professor had such an arrangement, enrollment for his class ballooned to 86 students — more than double the usual 30 that he teaches in a particular semester.
