Student Academic Policies Committee

Present Senators: Burrows, Doyle, Dries, Eimermacher, Mize

Guest: Walker

Issues:

The committee compiled a list of advantages and disadvantages associated with changing the grading scheme to include some type of +/- scale.

Advantages

Allows a more "accurate" representation of the student’s achievement.

Makes it easy for instructors to give a B+ to a student who has a high B, but not quite an A.

Motivational: It will encourage students to study throughout the whole term. If students know that a solid B could be a B+ with a good grade on the final, or a B- with a poor grade on the final, they will be more likely to study for the final.

There is a wide spread of achievement between the lowest B and the highest B. +/- grades will better categorize that group.

Many students are just a fraction from an A, and are sometimes given the benefit of the doubt (an A grade), because they are better than the B students. Now they could be given an A-.

Many students come from high schools that had +/- grading, and they like it.

More students will complain about how the grading was decided, e.g. why a B rather than a B+.

Students at UD are use to the A, B, C, D, F system. Many will not like the change initially

Since it is likely that many students will receive A-‘s instead of A’s, the number of summa cum laude and magna cum laude will decline.

Students who typically are in the low B range will earn B-. Their overall GPA may drop below a 3.0, hurting their chances for acceptance into graduate school or an interview with some companies.

Some students are consistently at the low C level. If these students earn many C-‘s, their GPA may drop below 2.0, and they won’t be able to graduate.

The new general competency program requires a C grade in writing, communication and mathematics. Students who receive a C- will have to repeat the course, or test out of the mathematics requirement.

No measurement system is sophisticated enough to differentiate between a grading scheme that includes +/- grades.

What do we like, and what do we not like.

Since less than 5% of the grades are presently D’s, it doesn’t seem that we need to have D+ or D-. Also, poor is poor.

If we have C-, we are going to have problems with students not being able to achieve a 2.0 for graduation.

If we have C-, we are going to have problems with students not passing the competency courses in writing, communications, and mathematics.

77% of the grades are now A and B. It would be good to spread these grades out more.

A+ is too much.

We need to have symmetry -- as many lower grades as higher grades.

Considering all of the above comments the committee tentatively agreed on the following grading procedure:

A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, D, F

It was pointed out that a B- grade may have a negative impact on graduate programs that require a 3.0 to graduate.

It was suggested that the SAPC present our results and suggested grading scheme to the Senate in December, just to get a sense of what the Senate thinks about it. It was also suggested that we contact more faculty about the specific grading scheme suggested above.

The SAPC discussed two suggested attendance policies. The first change would make attendance for sophomores the same as for freshmen. There were several negative comments about that possibility.

The second attendance policy suggestion was to have an attendance policy only for sophomores with a GPA below a 3.0. This was thought to be too much bookkeeping.

Another suggestion that would be easier to implement than the second one was to have attendance policies for 100 and 200 level courses only. One problem with that is that it would pick up some juniors and seniors

It was suggested that the present policy that requires permission to have an attendance policy for upper-class students be eliminated. However, it was noted that some instructors might establish ridiculous attendance policies.

It was pointed out that many faculty do take attendance in upper level classes formally, or just as part of class participation requirements.