Grading changes seen as plus for students

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

he University will change its grading systems from the current whole- and mid-point measures (A, AB, B, BC, etc.) to a more widely used plus and minus system (A, A-, B+, B, B-, etc.) in the fall of 2004. The Faculty Senate approved the change at its April 10 meeting.

     The current system is used at very few Research I and Research II universities, according to Ernest May, secretary of the Faculty Senate.

     "And it places our students at a tiny, but noticeable disadvantage when those grades are converted to the other system, for example, when they apply to graduate school," he said. "So there is actually a reason other than just convenience to do this."

     Values in the new system will be at the 0.7 mark for minuses (e.g., B- will be worth 2.7 points per credit hour) and the 0.3 mark for pluses (e.g. B+ will be worth 3.3 points per credit hour).

     When asked whether having more than one grading system on a given student's transcript would cause him or her difficulty, registrar Elizabeth Pyle told the senate that the University already regularly deals with this when students take Five College classes or transfer credits from other schools.

     The system will conform more with the other campuses in the Five Colleges and the UMass system.

     Implementation of the new grades must wait until 2004 in order to honor the description of grading offered in the most recent version of the catalog, which dictates grading for academic year 2003-04, deputy provost John Cunningham said.

     The new system will not make use of A+ nor of D-. Pluses and minuses between A and D will be used, as will F.

     In addition, new rules govern the SAT/F and P/F options. The latter will be available for undergraduates in courses numbered below 600. The former may be used for any student in a course numbered 600 or above and for graduate students in courses numbered between 500 and 599.

     In other changes, incomplete grades for undergraduates will convert to IF, rather than F at the end of the semester following the incomplete, and Y grades will be limited to the first semester of a two-semester sequence. Both parts of a two-semester sequence must be given the same grade.