Chris Akel

News Editor

Despite some senators’ skepticism surrounding the addition of minus grades, the Faculty Senate approved the new grading scale at its monthly meeting Tuesday.

Todd Diacon, vice provost for academic affairs, and John Romeiser, professor of modern foreign languages, proposed the approval of the Undergraduate Council’s minutes on Sept. 18 and Oct. 30, which included the recommendation of the new grading scale.

Diacon and Romeiser argued that the Undergraduate Council felt the new grading scale was a positive move for the university and said the benefits of a more specific grading system outweighed the drawbacks. Diacon cited a statistic from the University of Georgia, which switched to a plus and minus grading system two years ago.

“I talked to the vice provost at the University of Georgia,” Diacon said. “They’ve had a … one one-hundredth of a point reduction in their median GPA since that time. The University of Asheville did a similar study — they had virtually no change.” Diacon also cited reports from North Carolina State University and Wake Forest, which he said produced similar results.

However, in response to Diacon’s assurance the effect on GPA’s overall was minimal, Sen. Lou Gross addressed the body with graphs and data analysis in hand.

“I did take a poll in my class, and they requested that I come and present their opinion, which was unanimous, minus one, that they did not like this idea,” Gross said.

Gross explained that, at the request of his class, he took four of five sections of one of his classes for the Fall 2006 semester, which totaled to 115 students, and translated each students’ percentile at the end of the semester into the corresponding letter grade and the associated point values for that grade based on the old grading scale. Then he repeated the experiment using the recently adopted grading scale.

“It’s my analysis of the grades assigned in this course in previous years that the new grading system would have an average of .13 grade points lower,” Gross said. “It’s important to remember that this way of postulating the difference is not the same as in the report (by the provost) because that’s a historical one.”

Diacon then said he could not argue authoritatively over statistics with Gross.

“So I presented this proposal to my faculty in the College of Business and Administration. I didn’t even understand (one of) the questions (of a statistician),” Diacon said in response. “And before I could take a breath, another faculty member stood up and said, ‘Well, I’m also a statistician and I want to tell you why my colleague is completely wrong.’ So far be it from me to get into an argument with Lou Gross over math.”

In responding to Sen. Robert Heller’s questions regarding students’ motivations for fighting the grading scale, Diacon said, “It’s the nature of students to imagine the negative consequences without imagining positive ones.”

Jennifer Buntin, SGA senator and junior in logistics, clarified students were afraid of both losing the HOPE scholarship and losing good academic standing because of the drop in overall grades. She also shared the approved SGA bill to add an A+ to the proposed grading scale, which would translate to a 4.33 GPA, a resolution that attracted many senators’ attention.

The debate closed with Romeiser adding that faculty would still have the choice of whether or not to use the scale.

“I think in the end, if we move forward with this, the individual faculty … can still give the regular A (and) B grades with the pluses. Granted, the B+ will be worth a little bit less than it was before,” he said.

The senate voted in favor of the new grading scale 36 -19. Two senators abstained.

At the end of the meeting, the issue of adding an A+ was raised by Sen. Julia Malia. After a brief discussion, the senate body voted in favor of a motion to send a recommendation back to the Undergraduate Council to discuss the A+ in light of the approval of the new grading scale.

The senate also voted in favor of a resolution to endorse an environmental awareness campaign, “Focus the Nation,” proposed by President-elect John Nolt.