The Student Senate voted unanimously Monday to condemn the Faculty Senate’s proposal to change the grading system at RPI to include pluses and minuses (grade modifiers). The motion, presented by Class of 2006 Senator Mike Goldenberg, who chairs the Committee on Academic Affairs and Services, cites the Senate’s reasons in addition to offering a suggestion of implementing a test period to gather data before the change is made.
“We, the representatives for the Rensselaer student body, stand strongly opposed to the current Grade Modifier Proposal set forth by the Faculty Senate,” reads the resolution. “Our research concludes that the overwhelming majority of students are opposed” to the proposed system.
“I believe we have done what we were elected to do: represent the views of the majority of students,” said Goldenberg after the vote. “However, we are enthusiastic about continuing to work with the Faculty Senate.”
“We have accurately represented the views of our students,” agreed Grand Marshal Mike Borzumate.
The motion cites four reasons for opposing the system put together by Professor Christoph Steinbruchel and the Faculty Senate’s Curriculum Committee: with nearly three times as many grades, each assignment would have a greater emphasis on a students final grade; increased stress on students with 4.0s to perform at their usual standards; the lack of recommendations on shifting requirements that depend on GPA, such as financial aid and ability to graduate; and limitations on “how quantized grades and grading criteria can become,” especially in classes where the grading is more subjective.
At present, graduating from RPI requires at least a cumulative average of 1.8, meaning that C- students will receive diplomas. However, if the grading scheme is changed, a C- average will be approximately 1.7.
The resolution concludes with a call for a testing phase wherein grade modifiers would be “given, analyzed, but not attached to students’ transcripts” similar to that implemented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT has been analyzing grade modifiers since 1997 to determine their exact affect on a student’s overall GPA; the Senate’s recommendation stipulates that RPI’s last “at least one year.”
“The proposed trial period would allow for solid research before a decision is made,” Goldenberg pointed out.
At present, the Senate has not recommended any changes to the proposal such as different grading schemes or grandfathering, but has instead focused on defeating the proposal as a whole.
With student government elections this Thursday, it is uncertain at this time what will happen to the proposal in the coming weeks. All parties involved believe that it should continue to be an issue for the incoming government, but how the newly-elected representatives will deal with it is as yet unknown.
Professors have been asked by the Faculty Senate to spend this week discussing the proposal with their classes in order to gauge student response so that they might make a more informed decision when the motion goes to a vote of the full faculty in late April. Several professors have followed through on this, spending a few minutes presenting their case and asking the students for theirs, but quick, non-scientific surveys among students show that this is not widespread.
Also at their meeting on Monday, the Senate approved a letter to send to New York Governor George Pataki, recommending that he reconsider his budget recommendation and the 33 percent cut in the Tuition Assistance Program. The letter describes that over 1,400 students at RPI participate in the program, and this would severely affect those students.
“If this was cut, we would lose a lot of students,” said Class of 2004 Senator Jose Benitez. He went on to describe the Office of Minority Student Affairs’ efforts to defeat the proposal, and the disproportionate number of minority students who are enrolled in the TAP program.
The letter was approved unanimously, but not without some uneasiness from some members of the Senate.
“I’m concerned about passing a resolution without knowing more about it,” said freshman Senator Doug Kingman. “We don’t even know where it is—governor’s desk, Senate, House. We don’t even know where the money is going.”
