 "Photo: Jordan Gomez")
The Faculty Council opposed a motion Monday calling for the formation of a task force to further explore issues surrounding the controversial plus/minus grading scale set to take effect fall 2009.
Reid Long, Senate of College Councils policy director, called for the motion that would have amended a council proposal outlining the specifics of implementing the grading scale. University President William Powers approved the scale in June.
After voting against the senate's amendment, the council approved the proposal with one minor amendment - narrowing the scope of one provision to include only undergraduate grades. Desmond Lawler, chair of the council's Educational Policy Committee, presented the 15-item proposal at last month's council meeting.
Long and other student-body leaders from the senate and Student Government expressed concern that the process of implementation has not been completely transparent, and that students have not had enough opportunity to voice their opinion on both the approval and implementation of the scale.
Student Government representative Keshav Rajagopalan pointed out that all six voting student members voted in support of the opposed task force amendment, and said it shows hesitation on the part of students.
"We fear that this will be the end of the discussion on plus/minus grading," Rajagopalan said.
An overwhelming majority of faculty members voted against the amendment. Several expressed the sentiment that the plus/minus grading scale is a dead horse issue that continues to be beaten.
Of the voting members who were present, 36 faculty members voted against the amendment and 15 for it with six of those votes being from student representatives.
"I think there's been input," said Powers, who was not able to attend the meeting due to tenure reviews. "I think some students don't like the outcome of that input and I appreciate that. I think that's a fair comment. We're always looking for input and I think the council sought as much input as they could get."
Faculty Council Chair-Elect David Hillis, who drafted the original proposal to implement the plus/minus grading scale, has said the undergraduate grading scale should be changed to mirror the graduate grading scale, which assigns minus and plus values to letter grades.
Human ecology professor Jeanne Freeland-Graves voted in favor of the latest amendment, and said she believes there should be a provision in the proposal that recognized outstanding student performance. Lawler responded saying that an A+ provision would be proposed next semester, although it would only be symbolic and no value would be given above a 4.0.
Under the approved proposal, the fall 2009 implementation date depends on the Office of the Registrar making necessary changes to accommodate the grading scale. When implemented, the grading scale will begin on day one of that semester and apply to any grades received after that date. Previous grades will not be recalculated using the new grading scale.
"[The grading scale] can't be applied retroactively," Lawler said last month.
Tuition cap reaction
In other business, Deputy to the President Charles Roeckle spoke on behalf of Powers on the UT System Regents' Thursday decision to cap tuition increases system-wide at 4.95 percent. Roeckle thanked the Tuition Policy Advisory Committee, especially the student members, for "taking the heat" during student forums and for their work creating the original proposal calling for a 15 percent increase.
Council members applauded Stephen Myers and Andrew Solomon, who are both student representatives of the council and attended the meeting.
"This isn't just a matter of the cost of education," Roeckle said. "It's the cost of a high quality education. The tuition increases recommended by the TPAC were the result of months of hard work and they were derived from real data that were really for real needs. They worked very, very hard to narrow down what they thought were the critical needs and then to take a realistic look at the kind of support that was needed through a tuition increase to fund those needs."
Roeckle said that when the committee began its work this summer, the UT System told them there would be no restraints on tuition policy and that the high priorities Powers set at the beginning of the year - including increasing faculty salaries and student support - would remain so.
"As we consider the budget adjustments that are going to be necessary because of the tuition limit, we will continue to have those as our high priorities," Roeckle said, adding that there have been meetings with the president in the last week to discuss strategies of how to deal with the cap.
Powers reaffirmed this goal and said that the tuition committee did a "tremendous job" identifying the University's critical needs.
"I'm disappointed by the regents' vote," Powers said. "We will continue to work with TPAC on identifying even in this group of high priorities and critical needs what we're going to focus on going forward. It is absolutely critical that we continue to work on competitiveness to attract the very best faculty and faculty salaries will be a top priority."
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