An Offer I Could Refuse

   Most failing students eventually accept the unpleasant message at the end of the semester that they're going to have the pleasure of hearing my lectures all over again. I have some familiarity with this feeling, as I also had it many years ago when I received an F and two D's in my first semester of college. They are inconvenient messages, but not the end of the world-losing the game doesn't mean losing the season, and adversity builds strength. This being Rhode Island however, some student responses to a flunk were–unorthodox.
 
   The first happened not long after I arrived in Rhode Island from the West Coast, and it colored my impression of the state for a couple of years. When the semester was over, this student dropped by and wanted to know why he'd gotten an F. He was sort of a ratty looking guy, kind of like "Christopher" on the "Sopranos," so that's what I'll call him. I figured that he didn't really want to know why he'd gotten the F, but I pulled out the gradebook anyway, and explained to him that maybe the fact that he hadn't gone to half the labs, missed one of the midterms, and had a 35% on his final might have had something to do with his failure. There was a moment of silence, then he said, "I can't get an F in this course. Would you take something for it?"
 
   I gave him a kind of a puzzled look, then in the universally known gesture, rolled my thumb and fingers together and said, "You mean___?" His eyes brightened up and he said, "Yeah!"
 
   So I said, "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? No problem. But could I make a suggestion?"
 
   Suspicious, he said, "What?"
 
   "Since you did such a wretched job in the course, if I give you an A, it might start people talking, raising questions that we don't want to deal with, like that. So I suggest we make it a C+. Would a C+ do for you?"
 
   He was practically jumping up and down. "Oh, yeah, C+ would be good, would be fine!"
 
   "Okay, then," I said. "We just have to agree on the grade modification fee. You understand that the grade modification fee is not fixed, but varies with each case. Now in a transaction like this, it's a risk-balance-reward situation. The outcome for YOU if you get caught; what's the worst case, you flunk the course, but you're gonna do that anyway, maybe you get thrown out for cheating and have to go someplace else, but after a year you're back. But for me, I'd get fired, and never be able to teach again. So, the thing of it is, Christopher, I have to charge you an amount that, if I got canned, I could live on for the rest of my life, sort of like an insurance policy."

   Well, old Christopher wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, and wasn't tracking too well, so I pulled out a calculator and went on- "See, what I'm gonna have to do is, what you give me, I'll put in a Swiss bank, in a numbered account for privacy. Now the Swiss, they only pay about 2.75% interest, then there's the Swiss franc differential, the international transfer fees, oh, yeah, the arbitrage fees, and like that, they nickel and dime you to death, it's robbery, so Christopher, what it comes down to is this. For that nice, juicy C+. I'm gonna have to get from you four hundred seventy five---thousand, six hundred and sixteen dollars. And I do take Master Card."
 
   It took him a full ten seconds to realize he'd been had, and then, the language? Oh my, I could have fried bacon with it. Knowing what I now know about Rhode Island in the old days, I never should have taken the chance that he would whack me, but it was wonderful to see his face.
 
I’ve subsequently found in chatting with other large class instructors on this, and other campuses, that stories like this are not that uncommon–yet another thing to have a policy for in advance.