APPENDIX C

How to Make Better Grades

and Have More Fun

Joseph M. Mellichamp
Professor of Management Science
The University of Alabama

If you are at all like many Christian professors, you have a desire to reach out to students and to minister to them. Perhaps you haven't done so because you haven't been able to think of an appropriate way. Helping students in the context of improving their grades is a natural ministry opportunity for faculty. Practically every college student is interested in improving his or her grades and the prospect of being able to make better grades and have fun at the same time is universally appealing. Here is a way you can reach college students in a way that addresses felt needs and requires a minimal time investment on your part.

Consider developing and presenting a How to Make Better Grades and Have More Fun talk in conjunction with the local Campus Crusade for Christ or other Christian student group on your campus. Christian student groups usually sponsor a number of evangelistic programs on campus for the purpose of developing contacts to share the gospel one-on-one at a subsequent meeting. Your Campus Crusade group will probably be delighted to set you up with speaking engagements in dorms, sororities, fraternities, student associations, and other similar student groups. They will arrange all publicity for the meeting, make the physical arrangements, and do all the follow-up. All you have to do is show up at the appointed time and deliver a dynamite talk on how to make good grades.

The following steps are suggested for getting a Grades talk going.

  1. Contact your Campus Crusade for Christ student ministry director to see if the Crusade staff would be interested. Many staff members will want to have one or more such talks a year, so you may have to involve some of your colleagues to meet the demand.
  2. Obtain a copy of the book How to Get Better Grades and Have More Fun by Steve Douglas from Christian Leadership Ministries, 14679 Midway Road, Suite 100, Dallas, TX 75244-3124. Read the book. It is a fun book to read, once you start, you won't want to put it down.
  3. Using material from the book plus drawing from your own experience and sources, develop a thirty to forty minute talk. When I did my talk, I used things that had helped me as a student; my suggestions are primarily time management principles, while Steve's are more directed to how to study. Use ideas which you can confidently recommend to students. An outline of my talk is included at the end of this paper.
  4. You will only need five or six recommendations. You don't need to cover everything that could possibly improve grades -- just a few heavy hitters. Each student will be getting a free copy of the Grades book by requesting it at the end of your presentation.
  5. Your last point should be a short personal testimony. I use the well-rounded square concept -- that we should seek to develop socially, physically, intellectually, and spiritually. I then share that for many years, I ignored the spiritual dimension of life and thus was never totally satisfied with my life. Remember, you are not trying to present the gospel in great detail with the students, that will come later in one-on-one sessions with Crusade staff. You are simply using your influence as a professor to cause them to become open to a consideration of spiritual issues.
  6. Develop a handout for your talk. I use a one page front and back handout which covers the essential points. You may also develop a comment card with which to get the names, addresses, and comments from students who attend your sessions. Alternatively, the Crusade staff may already have cards which are suitable for this purpose. A copy of the card we use is included at the end of this paper.
  7. Let the staff know that you are ready for business and prepare to have a blast.
Several suggestions will be useful as you actually make the presentation.

  1. Have a short biographical sketch ready for the staff member or student who will be introducing you.
  2. I always like to begin by finding out how many freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors are in the group. You can use this as an ice-breaker, teasing the juniors and seniors by saying that it may be too late for them. NOT!
  3. You may suggest to the group that in today's economy, grades are increasingly important in getting a good job after graduation.
  4. Try to interact as much as possible. For example, when I cover my point on not cutting classes, I ask how many of them have cut a class today or this week. Most will respond affirmatively. Then I suggest the two main reasons for unexcused cuts: sleeping in or last minute studying for an exam or preparing an assignment, neither of which would be necessary if the student was properly managing his or her time.
  5. Make your testimony point brief, but effective.
  6. At the conclusion of the talk, have two people ready to pass out comment cards and pencils. Ask the students to fill out the cards giving their name and address. Then let them know that you would like to give them a free copy of the book How to Get Better Grades and Have More Fun; let them know that the Crusade staff person will get in touch with them to give them the book if they indicate they want a copy. Ask for their comments on the lecture. I have found it effective to get them to indicate which of my recommendations they will try to implement. Also ask if what you said about spiritual things made sense and if they would like to get together with someone to talk over spiritual issues.
  7. Once you have collected the comment cards, thank the students for allowing you to come and turn the program over to the host.
By way of encouragement, let me share with you my experience with the Grades talks at the University of Alabama. Over the last five years, I have given the talk approximately sixty times to about 3500 students. I have done the talk in just about every imaginable situation -- to six men in a dormitory, to 150 women in a sorority house, to professional engineering societies, to pledge classes, to the regular Crusade weekly meeting. When I first started doing the talk, the dorms were essentially closed to Crusade; the Grades talk has opened the dorms up and now Crusade is able to do a variety of other programs as well.

The response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. The comment cards are uniformly positive; most students indicate they will implement one or more of my suggestions, about 90 percent ask for a copy of the book, and about five percent indicate an interest in spiritual things. Of course, each student who fills out a comment card is personally contacted by the Crusade staff person and those who are interested are presented with the gospel which is printed in the back of the Grades book. I have students come up to me on the campus frequently thanking me for doing the talk, often sharing how much their grades have improved as a result of the talk.

I have been invited back every year to some dorms and sororities and fraternities. Sometimes I get a call from someone who has heard about the Grades talk from a friend. I always refer these unsolicited calls to the Crusade staff who the work with the caller to set up a talk. I am sure that I will never really know the total impact of this effort. I'm convinced that I have impacted the overall student grade point average at the university by a minuscule amount. But the real motivation for the talks is that students are coming to Christ through the follow up of the Crusade staff. I can honestly say that in twenty-five years as a professor, the Grades talk is perhaps my favorite professorial activity.

HOW TO MAKE BETTER GRADES

AND HAVE MORE FUN

Joseph M. Mellichamp
Emeritus Professor of Management Science
The University of Alabama

Introduction

Six Easy Principles

Conclusion

[ Appendix B | Table of Contents | Appendix D ]