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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                            Matt Dulin                             Tony Hernandez 
                Jim Parsons             Dusti Rhodes           Blake Whitaker

Faculty needs to weigh in on SGA grading plan

A bill that could see a vote in the Student Government Association Senate today is aimed directly at your transcript. 

Hoping to assuage the grief suffered by "victims of the A-minus," the plan seeks to reform the University's grading system to eliminate pluses and minuses. Students would receive simply an A, B, C, D or F, with no distinctions outside these five categories.

While a great many A-minus students would like to see this legislation pass, they do so assuming they would fall in the uppermost echelon. This may not necessarily be the case. Eliminating the transitional B-plus or C-plus grades would drastically affect the way the University grades its students; the definition of an "A" would have to be re-written. It would also greatly affect how students approach classroom performance.

In a strictly A-B-C environment, we would hope professors had more stringent grading. Otherwise, to receive an A, students could perform at a slightly lower level, when they'd usually get an A-minus, but would get the same grade as someone who earns a full A. That may be lucky for some, but is it necessarily fair?

As much as it would like to, the SGA cannot simply legislate a new grading system and hope it gets implemented quickly enough to improve students' GPAs. A plan like this needs the broad support of the University, beginning with the faculty. 

This question should be at the heart of the debate: is a simple grading system more fair? Does it favor higher-achieving students who simply don't want an A-minus? Or B-minus? Backers say the change would make students more competitive with The University of Texas and Texas A&M University students, who operate under that system.

If the SGA approves the legislation at its meeting tonight, it needs to be examined by our faculty and staff for input before the University gives it full consideration. But we'd rather have that happen first.