After two weeks of discussion, members of the Baker University Student Senate took a stance.
After two weeks, the senators voted 23 to six to oppose the proposed grading scale.
The Educational Programs and Curriculum Committee brought the proposed grading scale before members of the Baker University Faculty Senate Feb 8.
Members of the committee proposed a new grading scale which could be implemented at Baker University next year, which would be a plus/minus scale.
At the senate meeting, sophomore Hannah Schaake and junior Tracy Gerant spoke on behalf of the ad hoc committee that Baker University Student Senate President Warren Swenson commissioned Feb. 15 to do more research about a plus/minus grading scale.
The committee was made up of freshman Josh Hanson, Schaake and juniors Gerant and Shavon Brown.
“We kind of looked into stuff that (Professor of Biology) Darcy Russell didn’t provide us with as hard of facts on,” Schaake said at the meeting. “There is a lot more research out there, but the main things we focused on were real GPA, motivation, grade inflation and how you’re graded.”
Members of the ad hoc committee presented research both in opposition of the grading scale and in favor of the grading scale.
Some of the research they presented was by Professor Peter Koper and James Felton, chairperson for the finance and law department, of Central Michigan University, as well as facts from a research paper by Yonah Wilamowsky, Bernard Dickman and Sheldon Epstein.
“We met Monday, and after last week’s meeting we saw that all of the senators were kind of against it,” Brown said. “We decided to do some research and have some hard facts down, so we wouldn’t be, like, this is our emotional appeal, we did our research with numbers. Teachers like numbers, they like (statistics).”
Members of the committee called different graduate programs around the United States and found that most programs look at a student’s grade point average secondary to their entrance exam scores.
“They care more about the LSAT that you take to get into law school, the MCAT for medical school and the one for psychology grad schools, the GRE,” Schaake said. “They care more about that score than they do about your GPA. And, most schools, it is individual to the program.”
At the meeting, students continued to express concerns they had heard from their constituents about the grading scale.
“I can tell you that one member of Delta Tau Delta (fraternity) wants this to happen, and everybody else is really against it,” Rick Singer, senator for Delta Tau Delta, said.
While almost all of the student senators voted in opposition of the scale, they do not have a vote in faculty senate.
Members of the Baker University Faculty Senate will meet Tuesday, where a vote could take place, or they could table the motion for further discussion.
“(The faculty) want to hear our voice,” Brown said. “So, I hope that they just take what we say to heart even if they do decide to (implement) the new system.”
