Spring Break
So long to C-
Aaron Hedge
Issue date: 12/5/07 Section: News
Following an hour and a half of heated debate, the Faculty Council voted 27 to 23 in favor of striking C-, D+ and D- from all programs at the university. The reason for the proposal was to ease consistency woes between different sections of classes.
In the old system, two students taking the same class in different sections who earn the same percentage might end up with different GPAs.
A student earning a 70 percent in a class with a teacher who uses plus minus grading would receive a 1.667 for that class and have to take it again. But a student in another section of the same class earning a 70 percent with a teacher who doesn't use plus or minus grading would pass.
The same measure was defeated in Wednesday night's student government meeting.
"They didn't think that was necessarily going to solve a problem," said ASCSU President Katie Gleeson.
Some instructors agreed, saying that the proposed measure doesn't address the real issue, which they say is the faculty's inherent option to use the plus or minus system.
Others said instructors should have the authority to use their discretion and decide the grade earned by the student.
Finance and real estate professor Tim Gallagher even said that if the council adopted a universal policy, he wouldn't obey it.
"If this lobby were to pass today a requirement that everyone must use pluses and minuses, I'm gonna turn in grades to my department next year without any pluses or minuses," he said. "And when my department chair calls me in, I'm gonna say there was no one there on the border … (that) I had a quad-modal distribution."
During the meeting, several amendments were proposed to the measure, all of them scrutinized intensely. Only one amendment went to a vote, where it was overwhelmingly defeated.
David Greene, occupational therapy professor, said it would be better to strike minus grades from the system because of the general inconsistency of the system.
In the old system, two students taking the same class in different sections who earn the same percentage might end up with different GPAs.
A student earning a 70 percent in a class with a teacher who uses plus minus grading would receive a 1.667 for that class and have to take it again. But a student in another section of the same class earning a 70 percent with a teacher who doesn't use plus or minus grading would pass.
The same measure was defeated in Wednesday night's student government meeting.
"They didn't think that was necessarily going to solve a problem," said ASCSU President Katie Gleeson.
Some instructors agreed, saying that the proposed measure doesn't address the real issue, which they say is the faculty's inherent option to use the plus or minus system.
Others said instructors should have the authority to use their discretion and decide the grade earned by the student.
Finance and real estate professor Tim Gallagher even said that if the council adopted a universal policy, he wouldn't obey it.
"If this lobby were to pass today a requirement that everyone must use pluses and minuses, I'm gonna turn in grades to my department next year without any pluses or minuses," he said. "And when my department chair calls me in, I'm gonna say there was no one there on the border … (that) I had a quad-modal distribution."
During the meeting, several amendments were proposed to the measure, all of them scrutinized intensely. Only one amendment went to a vote, where it was overwhelmingly defeated.
David Greene, occupational therapy professor, said it would be better to strike minus grades from the system because of the general inconsistency of the system.
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