The Great Pass/Fail Debate

So it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy, but it hasn't really been the exciting kind of busy--it's the routine, same-thing-every-day type of busy. My weeks have become a predictable mix of classes, reading, various extracurriculars, and maybe a night or two out with some friends. It's getting to the middle of the semester, and with the job search over, there's not a tremendous amount on the horizon until the looming specter of finals and all that they entail--hornbooks, frantic outlining, practice exams, review sessions.

Anyway, a hot topic around the law school lately has been our grading system. Earlier this week, the dean of our law school held what was billed as a town hall meeting, to discuss "grading policies." For background, other law schools like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Berkeley all have some form of a pass/fail system, while Columbia is still stuck with traditional letter grades. There has been some amount of clamoring (mostly from students, although some professors have also joined in) for our school to switch to such a system as well.

The administration, while openly inviting debate on the issue, seems fairly set on keeping things the way they are. Our Dean, David Schizer, sent out an e-mail to the school earlier this semester that seemed to defend the current system. It read, in part:

"I've also heard from some of you regarding the changes in the grading
system at Harvard and Stanford. We've been following those changes
with interest. In fact, for a period prior to 1994, Columbia actually
had a system much like the one that Harvard and Stanford have just
adopted. At the time, Columbia had five grades: Excellent, Very Good,
Good, Pass, and Unsatisfactory. Students were concerned at the time
that a system of this sort did not provide enough information, and in
response to those student concerns Columbia adopted a system of letter
grades. This letter grade system is supplemented by a credit-fail
standard in some offerings. Most notably, unlike at Harvard and
Stanford, the first class that you, our students take, Legal Methods, is
graded on a credit/fail standard.

In combination, these elements of our system allow students to acclimate
when they arrive without the pressure of letter grades, and then to
receive detailed and nuanced feedback from faculty in subsequent
classes. We view these as important strengths of our current approach.
...
Our preliminary sense is that there is broad support
within our student body for our current system over the systems recently
adopted at Harvard and Stanford, but our process of deliberation on the
issue is on-going and we are continuing to solicit student input."

I don't feel particularly strongly one way or the other about the issue, but I think it would be nice to have such a system in place for my second and third year, since those grades are less consequential anyway. Thoughts?