Academic Standards Committee Minutes
March 22, 2001
Present: Houston Dougharty, Katie Danielson, Alyce DeMarais, Julian Edgoose, Robin Foster, Karen
Porter, Jack Roundy, Brad Tomhave, John Finney, Steve Rodgers, Jo Crane
1. Minutes: The minutes of the February 28 meeting were approved as written.
2. Announcements: Foster reminded members that Dean Cooney will be appearing at the next full
committee meeting to open discussion of instructor issues, and asked that we defer deliberations on them
until that meeting. Edgoose asked about documents referenced in instructor-related materials sent to
committee members (particularly the “Thorndike letter”); do we need these additional documents, and
when will they be distributed? Foster replied that the documents in question all relate to salary issues,
and weren’t distributed because those issues fall largely under the purview of the Faculty Salary
Committee. Goodman, a member of that committee as well as ASC, has agreed to discuss any salaryrelated issues that ASC members believe are pertinent to their deliberations. Foster also offered to send
a copy of the Thorndike letter to any member who wants one.
3. Petitions Committee: Tomhave reported petitions committee actions as below, adding that he has
th
yet to include the results of the March 20 meeting because one set of decisions from that meeting is still
pending. Should the petitions in question be approved as expected, the March 20 tally will be: Approved—
7, Denied—2, Deferred—1. YTD data below do not include these decisions.
Date
2/27/01
3/6/01
YTD
Approved
3
6
203
Denied
1
1
37
No Action
Total
0
0
2
4
7
242
The committee’s next meeting is on March 27 at 2 pm in the Misner Room.
4. Pass/Fail: Foster began discussion by calling attention to salient features of our P/F policy as outlined
in the Logger (p. 51). It is “designed to encourage a student to explore courses in academic areas outside
the major or minor. The breadth of a liberal education is thereby enhanced.” Students may “take a total
of four (4) academic courses and up to 1.5 activity units on a Pass/Fail basis in the minimum of thirty-two
(32) units required for graduation.” P/F registrations “are ‘blind’ and are not reported to the instructor.”
P/F students “receive a ‘P’ if the instructor submits a grade of ‘C-‘ or higher and receive an ‘F’ if the
instructor submits a grade of ‘D+’ or lower.” Courses taken P/F meet neither University Core
requirements, nor major requirements, nor minor requirements. Courses graded “P” are credited toward
total hours for the degree but are not part of the grade point average calculation; courses graded “F” are
included in the grade point average calculation.
Finney distributed a document detailing the history of P/F (attached). Dougharty inquired how the
minimum grade for a “P” had been changed from “D-“ to “C-“. Finney replied that the decision was made
because of P/F abuse by students using the system to protect their GPAs and to “slack off.” Of particular
concern at the time was that faculty were becoming unwitting collaborators in this abuse, devising de facto
standards of performance for P/F students that were less demanding than those for students taking their
courses for a grade.
To the question asked by several members about why P/F was to be reviewed this year, Foster replied
both that it is standard practice of the ASC to review established policy on a regular basis, and that certain
problems have arisen with P/F that make this review timely. As an example, she described her own
experience teaching PSYC 200 (Human Sexuality), in which a number of non-majors enroll P/F. She
characterized these students as typically upperclassmen, noticeably less serious than their classmates,
producers of subpar work and frequent absentees from class. She believed that their presence in it
brought down the quality of the classroom experience.
Tomhave offered some current P/F data. This term, he said, there are 329 P/F registrations, 12% of
them in Art (the preponderance in Art 147, Ceramics). Because senior non-majors taking Art 147 P/F
routinely close the class very quickly, the Art Department has had to set aside seats for majors, to assure
access to those who need it. Edgoose suggested that this problem might be addressed by designating
only a limited number of seats in the course as P/F seats. Finney proposed an alternative solution, that
faculty be given authority to designate a course as “Graded Only.” Dougharty wondered if doing so might
not increase the number of petitions filed with the ASC. Foster replied that the “Graded Only” option
could be made non-petitionable.
Danielson offered herself as an example of a student who is using P/F in an appropriate way. At the
recommendation of the Art Department, she is taking Art 101 P/F. She is taking the course as
prerequisite to a higher level photography course, and was advised to take it P/F because the majority of
students in it are majors, and might set the bar higher for her as a non-major than she would find
comfortable. In the end, it has turned out that she would have done very well taking the course for a
grade, but this was not her point. Her point was that P/F encouraged her enrollment in this course outside
her major, and once in it she has worked every bit as hard as she would have in a graded course.
Edgoose inquired whether P/F is being used as something of a “lifeline” by students, a set of four special
opportunities to reduce performance stress in their class schedules. Tomhave said that is just what is
happening, as becomes most evident when seniors entering their last semester jealously count up the
number of P/F slots they have remaining to use for low-stress, fun courses like Art 147 as they go through
the registration line. Dougharty concurred, with a somewhat different emphasis; he noted that most of
the students he discusses P/F with are high achievers who do, indeed, want to reduce the academic
pressure in courses outside their area of curricular focus, but when they enter these courses they tend to
perform at levels comparable to their usual strong efforts.
Finney stated his fundamental objection to P/F. He argued that Puget Sound’s stated philosophy
respecting P/F “strikes a false note” in that the “breadth of a liberal education” justification actually
disguises students’ true motives for taking a course P/F: indemnity from the challenge of graded work and
the opportunity to “coast.” Finney called P/F a “vestige of a looser age” that survives only for the sake of
the one student in a hundred who uses it as she should, while ninety-nine others use it to “slack off.”
Edgoose added another objection to P/F, saying that as a member of the Masters in Education admission
committee, he views P/F grades on applicants’ transcripts differently from A-F grades, and P/F grades
don’t help the applicant’s chances. Finney thought this detrimental admissions committee attitude was
generalizable to applications in a number of graduate and professional school situations. Tomhave
added that in many cases, Puget Sound students taking courses P/F do so within their own major
departments (he gave examples in BPA, English, and P&G), directly counter to the University’s
philosophical reason for offering the option. Roundy responded that it would be easy enough to amend
the policy to prohibit students from taking courses P/F from their major departments.
Foster also regarded the phenomenon of seniors “loading up” on P/F courses as an abuse. Rodgers
disagreed, saying that he empathized with the “tired and punchy” senior who used P/F as a way to make it
to the graduation finish line.
Edgoose inquired whether we had any information on what our sister institutions’ P/F policies were.
Rodgers replied that he had done an unsystematic but revealing internet survey of comparable private
institutions in the Northwest. He discovered that they all had the P/F option, but varied dramatically in both
their liberality regarding the exercise of the option and in their policies for handling the credit. Edgoose,
sensing several members’ discomfort with abuses of our current P/F policy, asked whether we could
achieve the “broadening” goals of the policy through another means, allowing us to eliminate P/F in its
current form. No one had a suggestion to meet this goal.
At this point, Finney MS to reduce the number of P/F courses students are allowed to take at Puget
Sound from four to one. Upon hearing objections around the table, he accepted Edgoose’s friendly
amendment to make that reduction from four to two. Roundy added the friendly amendment,
which Finney also accepted, to limit the number of P/F courses a student may take per term to
one.
Dougharty inquired whether students already enrolled at Puget Sound would have the current P/F policy
“grandparented,” and Finney said they would. The new policy would be in effect only for those who begin
here in the fall of 2001 and afterward.
There followed a flurry of additional possible amendments, which all agreed could be taken up instead as
stand-alone motions later in our deliberations. These included: to abolish P/F altogether, to prohibit the
P/F option in a student’s department of major, and to grant instructors the option of offering their courses
as “Graded Only.” Tomhave spoke in favor of eliminating the option entirely, pointing out several
advantages of doing so.
Foster also suggested the possibility of eliminating the P/F option in lower division courses, a suggestion
Roundy opposed on the grounds that a class’s upper or lower division placement isn’t always indicative of
its challenge or worth as a “broadening” experience (e.g., Greek 101). Finney noted that the abuse of
upper division students crowding lower division classes will be alleviated to a degree beginning in Fall
2003 when lower division students are granted first crack at lower division classes. Crane returned us to
the problem of upper division students taking lower division courses P/F for fun, squeezing out lower
division students who need them (e.g., Art 147). Finney suggested that we could add a “space available”
clause to the P/F policy, treating it like the audit option in that those who wished to take a course P/F
would have to wait until all who wanted to take the course for graded credit had registered. While
applauding the notion, Tomhave wondered whether students might abuse the system by registering first
for graded credit and then changing their grade option to P/F later.
Given the lateness of the hour, we agreed that we would suspend the discussion at this point, reserving
the motion currently on the table and the several additional potential changes for the meeting after next,
when we will return to P/F questions after deliberating about instructor issues. Edgoose suggested that
when we do so, we might want to implement a limited number of new restrictions for the coming year,
while reserving the P/F agenda item for further consideration by the ASC in 2001-2002.
With that we adjourned at 8:53.
Respectfully submitted by the ASC amanuensis du jour,
Jack Roundy
DATE
February 8, 2001
TO:
Academic Standards Committee
FROM:
John M. Finney, Associate Dean and University Registrar
SUBJECT:
History of Pass/Fail
Pass/fail first became a grading option at Puget Sound in 1967-68. Freshmen could not
take courses pass/fail. This restriction was lifted beginning 1969-70. In 1967-68, courses
could not be taken pass/fail in major or minor courses, nor in general education courses.
Beginning in 1969-70 general education courses could be taken pass/fail, and the decision
to allow major or minor courses to be taken pass/fail was the department's.
Between 1967-68 and 1971-72 a student could register pass/fail for one course each
semester. Beginning in 1972-73 the additional restrictions of no more than three P/F
courses per year and no more than twelve in the degree were added. Also in 1972-73 the
catalog published for the first time the warning: "A student who is planning to go to a
graduate or professional school is advised to use the Pass-Fail option sparingly."
Beginning 1980-81 the number of pass/fail courses allowed in the degree was reduced
from twelve to four. Also beginning in 1980-81 core courses could not be taken pass/fail.
In 1980-81 the warning was changed to read "A student planning to go to a graduate or
professional school is advised not to use the pass/fail grading option." It has remained the
same ever since.
Beginning in 1982-83, the pass/fail system was modified so that instructors were unaware
of who was and who was not registered pass/fail. Also, the criterion for earning a "P"
grade in a pass/fail course changed from "D-" to "C-."
Until 1986-87 no explanation of the purpose of or rationale for pass/fail was ever
published. In 1986-87, the Academic Handbook contained for the first time this
introduction to pass/fail: "The Pass/Fail grade option is designed to encourage a student
to explore courses, especially upper-level courses, in academic areas outside the major or
minor. The breadth of a liberal education is thereby enhanced."
Pass/fail policy remained unchanged until 1995-96. That year’s Logger incorporated two
revisions approved by ASC November 8, 1994. The first was “All courses counting
toward the academic major or minor must be taken for a letter grade unless they are
mandatory pass/fail.” The second was to delete “especially upper-level courses” from
prior policy (see paragraph above).