CHAPEL HILL - By a narrow margin Friday, the UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty Council defeated a proposal for a comparative grade ranking that had stirred up students' opposition.

After a spirited debate, the faculty governing body voted 34-31 against adopting the achievement index, or AI, as it became known on campus. The statistical model, which compares students' grades to their classmates' grades, would have filtered out variations in grading among different academic departments and among individual professors. UNC-CH would have been the first campus in the country to use the system, supporters of the plan said.

The index would have been used along with grade-point averages as an additional measure offering more perspective on students' graded performance. It was proposed to combat, at least indirectly, the problem of "grade inflation" -- the rise in grades documented at UNC-CH and many U.S. universities.

Students worried that any grading adjustment would put UNC-CH students at a disadvantage competing for jobs and admission to graduate school. They mounted a vigorous campaign against the proposal in recent days. They held teach-ins, lobbied individual faculty members and launched an online petition joined by more than 700 people.

"We need to look at the root issues of this instead of superficially correcting them," Eve Carson, student body president, implored the council before the vote.

Joy S. Kasson, an American Studies professor, said she was concerned about a ranking that could damage UNC-CH's collaborative culture and drive a wedge between students and faculty and between the humanities and the natural sciences, where grades often differ. "I am deeply worried that this proposal has the potential to divide our campus," she said.

An English professor, Todd W. Taylor, was outraged at any attempt to manipulate the grades professors award. "You're handicapping my grades," he said. "You're handicapping my academic freedom any way you look at it."

But advocates of the AI said something should be done to bring more truth and fairness to grading. "We have a problem as a university," said Andrew Perrin, who teaches sociology.

Pick-A-Prof cited

The minor issue, Perrin said, is the escalation of grades over time. The bigger problem, he said, is a systemic inequity in grading practices. To illustrate his point, he pulled up the Web site for Pick-A-Prof, which contains the grading histories of professors at universities around the country. Perrin pointed out that Pick-A-Prof claims to have 1 million paying customers, many of whom use the site to shop for faculty who have a track record of handing out A's.

Despite Friday's vote, the topic of grade inflation at UNC-CH probably won't go away. Peter C. Gordon, a psychology professor who supported the AI, said faculty will have to decide next year whether to consider another approach.

It's an issue of credibility, he said, at a time when the federal government shows signs of tighter accountability of higher education.

"The achievement index was a way to demonstrate to society that grades are meaningful," Gordon said.