Not one student raised his or her hand in agreement Tuesday night at the Baker University Student Senate meeting.
Of the 28 students in attendance, each student raised his or her hand to not show support of the idea of a new grading scale that could go into affect for the 2011-2012 academic year.
The new grading scale came from the Educational Programs and Curriculum Committee on the Baker University Faculty Senate.
Members of the committee proposed a new grading scale to be implemented at Baker University next year, which would be a plus/minus scale and could affect the overall grade point average of the university.
With this new grading scale, an A, which could be considered a 93-100 percent, would reflect a 4.0 on a student’s transcript for that course. An A-, which is typically a 90-92 percent grade, would reflect a 3.67 on the transcript.
“We feel (the grading scale) will help students feel motivated throughout the semester,” Professor of Biology Darcy Russell said.
The motion is a substantive motion and will lie over until the faculty senate meeting in March, where the senators will vote to pass it or not.
The sliding grade scale passed in the EPC committee, 4-1, and most of the senators at the faculty senate meeting seemed to be in favor of the new scale.
The committee of faculty members stated its rationale behind the grading scale was student motivation, accurate evaluation of student performance and the effect it will have on the overall grade point average.
“This might lower the overall GPA of Baker slightly,” Russell said. “Often, students walk into an exam knowing that it can not affect their grade, so they don’t perform to the best of their ability on the final exam.”
The EPC committee does have a student representative from student senate, but the student did not regularly attend the committee meetings.
Tony Brown, adjunct professor of Liberal Arts, proposed this kind of grading scale in the early ‘90s.
While the body equivalent to today’s faculty senate adopted the plus/minus grading scale, it was rejected by the students and was never implemented. ?
For this proposed scale, each individual professor will be able to decide whether or not to use the new grading scale.
“The fact that you have an option to do plus/minus does not require you to do plus/minus,” Judy Smrha, assistant dean for student engagement and success, said. “If you want to use your current scale as defined in your syllabus … but those of us that would like to do pluses and minuses … we could use the plus and minuses, but one is not obligated to use the pluses and minuses, if you don’t think that is appropriate for that course.”
Senior Adam Taylor hopes the university will be consistent in requiring each professor to use, or not use, the new grading scale, or that departments as a whole will adopt it, rather than leaving it up to each individual professor.
“I think Baker has a very good track record with getting its students into (graduate programs),” Taylor said. “So, I think we could be risking that happening.”?
Several members of student senate created a Facebook group, Students Against Baker University’s New Grading Scale, after the senate meeting.
As of Thursday, 60 students had joined the group.
