BELLEFONTE -- The University will not have to defend an instructor's judgment in a suit by a former student who contended that an unfair grade delayed her Spring 1988 graduation.

Centre County President Judge Charles C. Brown Jr. supported the preliminary objections of University attorneys, ruling unnecessary an arbitration hearing that would decide whether the court would hear the $4,170 civil complaint.

Plaintiff Kathleen O'Connor of Pottstown did not appeal Brown's decision, ending nearly two years of attempts to prove she was wronged by not being told in advance she would fail two assignments.

O'Connor, a 1989 communications graduate, filed suit in April claiming she wrongly received a D grade in Communications 481, "TV -- Programming and Performance" in Spring 1988, taught by instructor Lorna Rasmussen.

O'Connor argued her instructor had an obligation to warn her about her unsatisfactory progress.

Brown said Rasmussen did not bear such responsibility.

"We find no allegations of a duty on the defendant's (the instructor's) part to advise the plaintiff it was allegedly impossible for her to receive a passing grade in the course," he wrote in his denial to award damages.

The monetary value of the complaint included O'Connor's tuition, rental and utility expenses incurred while she retook the class in Fall 1988.

Defense attorney Wendell V. Courtney said his strategy to avoid a scheduled Jan. 18 arbitration hearing was simple: the plaintiff's case for a hearing was based on a faulty theory.

"We said it didn't hold water," he said.

O'Connor said she was under legal advisement not to reveal any future legal action. She said not being told of her class progress was part of a greater problem in the University's grading procedure, another reason for the lawsuit.

"I wanted a better system of checks and balances between students, faculty and professors," she said in a telephone interview yesterday from her Pottstown residence. "It's something Penn State and student government should look at."

O'Connor took legal action after a University appeals board ruled against her claim that Rasmussen should have updated her grade status.

The court's ruling against O'Connor was anticipated by some.

"As a matter of law, the courts give great deference to academic decisions by university faculty or administrators," said Lewis M. Popper, the University of Pittsburgh's head counsel, when told about the case last year.

Donald T. Suit, the University's director of the Office of Conduct Standards, said: "The courts don't wish to insert themselves in the grading procedure. Just a grade by itself they rarely intervene with."

Courtney, a partner with the State College firm that has represented the University in all legal matters since the early 1900s, said this case has been the only one in at least four years where an undergraduate student sued because of a grade dispute.

O'Connor does not regret her actions. "I'm very glad I did it," she said.