This is the third time in the last month I have had an academic tell my class (different classes) that they have decided not to do final exams. Because "some students can't cope with time pressure" or "it's not fair on everyone" or "I don't believe in exams". They couch it in the language of "equity", despite the fact that it clearly screws over students who are good at exams/aren't as good as assignments... This, on top of making practicals "non-compulsory", or removing lab/field classes altogether...
This ain't my first rodeo. I've been around for a while. I've never seen this before, even in the years immediately post-Covid...
And this isn't gender studies. This is, supposedly, Science and GIS.
I'm not sure how widespread this is, but I've heard from other students that more and more courses are going down this route, all very suddenly...
This despite the fact that students are much more likely to cheat on assignments than exams (obviously), and the "threat" of things like ChatGPT.
Not just at my Uni, either. Apparently this is happening elsewhere in Aus... Though my Uni has been particularly spiteful about it, with the removal of after-hours study spaces, and things like not even allowing library access to part time students on Sundays (yes, really)...
Something is very, very rotten in the state of Denmark. Not sure if other people have seen similar, in other countries, but if this is the state of "Higher Ed", even beyond all the woke shit..? Wow, we are so fucked...
It has been happening for years, especially in humanities/social science type classes. And while some of it may be DIE stuff, in my experience it is overwhelmingly faculty laziness with the DIE label now slapped on it for cover. Seriously, probably 2/3 (if not more) of the faculty at the school I teach at are the laziest people you've ever met.
So many faculty at the school I teach at just skipped finals to check out of the semester a week early (realistically, 2 weeks early because you don't have to grade final exams/projects if you don't assign them) that the administration now needs to send out reminders every semester: In order to maintain accreditation, you need to meet or exceed a certain length of classroom time (based on the number of credits), and skipping the final exam time means you don't meet that.
And it's more than just final exams. A lot of the faculty will complain loudly if their schedule requires them to be on campus more than 3 days a week. There was a huge fight during our last contract renegotiation because a lot of faculty wanted to be able to hold their office hours from home via Zoom rather than do them on campus. In Spring 22 I saw multiple e-mails from people saying that committee meetings should be moved online due to the Russian attack on Ukraine making gas prices prohibitively expensive. There are still some faculty who cite the WuFlu as a reason why their classes need to be online.
TL;DR - many professors are the laziest people you'll ever meet and they're just using the DIE stuff as cover to get out of having to do anything beyond the absolute bare minimum to keep their job.
Having professors/staff on campus is why University is a draw. Take those last things away and there's no point in spending all of that money. You can network for free with other peers. It's amazing that they aren't there 5 days a week for tuition costs these days. In the U.S. there is an equal amount of fake jobs bloat that matches the amount of actual productive Uni staff. Like diversity counselors, wellness, HR, admins, student safety, social workers. College needs a hard reboot. These schools need to start losing accreditation for turning out these useless graduates.