I believe “well that’s just stupid” will be the defining phrase of the next generation, perhaps of the entire century. Consider:

Prof lets students choose own grades for ‘stress reduction’

If you feel unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course, you can email the instructor indicating what grade you think is appropriate, and it will be so changed. No explanation is required, but it is requested that you consider waiting 24 hours before emailing the instructor.

If in a group meeting, you feel stressed by your group’s dynamics, you should leave the meeting immediately and need offer no explanation to the group members. Furthermore, you can request to discontinue all further group work and your grade will be based totally on non-group work.

Only positive comments about presentations will be given in class. Comments designed to improve future presentations will be communicated by email.

Fortunately, this if for a course on “business data management” rather than something important like medicine or engineering. (Note: how to tell if a course of study is important? If the graduate gets out into the world and gets a job in that field and manages to screw up and people *die* as a result… the course was important.)

Honestly, I can’t tell if this is a dumbass prof who has decided to coddle his students, or if he’s a worn-down prof who has decided to throw in the towel…and let reality come down like a hammer on the lazy slobs who decide to take advantage of the option to arbitrarily bump up their own grades and to avid negative comments.