MINUTES
ACADEMIC STANDARDS COMMITTEE
April 22, 2005
Present: Martin Jackson, Jo Crane, Ross Singleton, Andrea Hatch, Betsy Kirkpatick,
Houston Dougharty, Ann Wilson, Ken Clark, Martins Linauts, Geoff Block, Bill
Kupinse, Brad Tomhave, Bob Matthews, Fred Hamel, Dave Moore, Maria Sampen,
Martin Jackson, Pepa Lago, John Finney, Andreas Madlung, Mirelle Cohen, Jack
Roundy
1. Minutes: Minutes of the April 8 meeting were approved as written.
2. Announcements: Finney announced that a grade grievance has been filed by a
student and that he would be convening a Hearing Board right away if a resolution
cannot be worked out between student and faculty member. Hamel confirmed
ASUPS selection of Ben Bradley as Kate Sojda’s replacement on ASC next year.
Andrea Hatch will be on study abroad, and has nominated Kathryn McMillan as her
replacement. A decision on this nomination is pending. Hamel reported that he has
submitted the “final” ASC report for the year to the Faculty Senate as requested.
Hamel also reported that he had spoken with David Smith, chair of the informal
committee on study abroad, regarding their views of the P/F option for study abroad
students. That committee intends to discuss the matter further, but preliminary
analysis (confirmed by Singleton) suggests that so few students exercise the P/F
option when studying abroad that the issue is not significant. Hamel also reported
that Barry Anton, incoming Faculty Senate chair, is considering setting up Senate
liaisons with each of the standing committees to improve communication between the
bodies. His notion is that a senator would attend standing committee meetings as a
non-voting member. He welcomed feedback, especially with respect to avoiding a
degree of intrusiveness in committee business. Singleton responded that another
option would be to have standing committee chairs attend Senate meetings. Jackson
thought a liaison might just be in regular communication with the standing
committee chair, rather than being burdened with another meeting. Cohen thought
that a liaison might do well enough just carefully reading committee minutes.
Matthews remembered that this liaison idea had arisen many years ago, but that
nothing had ever come of it.
3. Petitions Committee Actions: Tomhave distributed a specimen petition by a
student who wished to change from P/F to graded option this term because the
course in question meets the Comparative Values core. He thought this petition was
instructive of the kinds of problems students can invite though use of P/F.
Date
4/13/05
4/20/05
YTD
Approved
7 (1 R + 6 PPT)
7 (6 PPT)
171 (29 R + 80 PPT)
Denied
0
0
34
No Action
0
0
3
Total
7
7
208
4. Proposal to Eliminate WF Grade: Hamel reminded us that the original Singleton
motion (March 25 - Singleton then M (Matthews S) to amend our withdrawal grade
policy to eliminate the WF and move the deadline for withdrawal to a date two
weeks following the midterm grading deadline.) was still under discussion. He
reported speaking with Faculty Senate chair Beardsley about this, and learned that
the senate is open to policy revision in this instance (as opposed to tinkering with
implementation of our current policy). Hamel summarized the five major options we
have discussed so far: 1) the Singleton motion, 2) Singleton motion with deadline in
the 11th week, 3) Singleton motion with deadline in the 12th week, 4) W/WF kept in
place, but with the deadline moved to the 6th week, and the WF not calculated in the
GPA, and 5) current policy maintained, but with more explicit justification required of
faculty for awarding a W after the deadline.
Singleton repeated that he would like to amend his own motion to move the deadline
back to the 12th week, but there were parliamentary constraints against doing so.
Jackson proposed a friendly amendment, observing that three of our options sought
the same basic policy but with differing deadlines. He proposed that we amend the
Singleton motion with a window of 9-12 weeks for the deadline, then hash out which
deadline made the most sense. Singleton was reluctant to accept this amendment
because of his belief that an earlier deadline is more “Draconian.” He then withdrew
his current motion, and then M (Clark S) to amend our withdrawal grade policy to
eliminate the WF and move the deadline for withdrawal to a date two weeks
before the last day of classes, after which A-F grading only would be allowed.
Singleton’s primary rationale for this change was to give faculty the flexibility to work
with struggling students in a system that would not punish them if their efforts didn’t
work out. Tomhave wondered why Singleton didn’t think he had that flexibility in
the current system. Singleton replied that the current system mandates the WF and
ties his hands when the criteria for awarding a W are not met. Under his proposal,
“unusual circumstances” would not be required for the awarding of a W.
Madlung wondered what would happen under the Singleton proposal when “unusual
circumstances” arose in the final two weeks of the term. Jackson thought that this
was a brief enough span of time that either incomplete grades or medical withdrawals
would handle most instances. He thought we might in fact want to make A-F grading
in this period non-petitionable.
Hatch opposed so late a final withdrawal deadline. She thought that the original
Singleton motion offered a less Draconian option than our current W/WF. But she
thought the 12th week deadline too lenient, and proposed that we extend the W
deadline to the 9th week, allow A-F grading from then to the 12th week, and thereafter
assign the WF. Moore said he felt comfortable with non-punitive withdrawals
through the 12th week, but suggested that later withdrawals be distinguished by a
non-punitive WF or something like the UW’s indication of the week of withdrawal (e.g.,
W8, W9, W10).
Finney asked Singleton whether his proposal was intended to give students a way to
avoid bad grades. Singleton said no, the idea is to allow students and faculty to
“rescue” a course without an unduly punitive outcome if the rescue fails. He pointed
out that the W (without the WF) is the norm at sister institutions, and Puget Sound is
an outlier in this regard. He thought that the W, with its loss of credit and tuition
dollars, was punishment enough for the student who could not rescue a course.
Finney responded by asking how a student would ever get a bad grade in such a
system? If they know our system, they will withdraw rather than accept a bad grade,
almost through the end of the term. Singleton replied that a student wouldn’t be able
to withdraw all the way to the end of term, and said he thought many students would
stick it out past the 12th week in the hope that they could save the course. Kupinse
thought we might still generate as many D’s and F’s as we do now, given the way in
which our W/WF policy works in practice.
Finney then asked what a professor would do after the 12th week if something
dramatic were to happen to a student. What would be that professor’s “out?”
Madlung said he thought an incomplete would work in such an instance. Finney
wondered what effect that, in turn, would have on our incomplete policy? He said he
could imagine situations where a faculty member assigning an incomplete would
essentially be consigning the student to an F later, when the incomplete deadline
came and went without action. Crane and Singleton concurred that the new policy
could be attended by problems, since every policy creates them. Hatch seconded
Finney’s speculation that the Singleton proposal would invite students to withdraw to
avoid unfavorable grades. Hamel thought in the worst case students might be drawn
to take courses with a “least-work-possible” mentality, knowing that the W could give
them a free exit. Sampen said that her issue was with the highly coveted spots in
music lessons—she only wants highly motivated students to take these spots. When
a student takes a spot, but then doesn’t bother to prepare or even show up, Sampen
wants to be able to assign the F as a disincentive to repeating that behavior. She
thought the Singleton motion would make it too easy to get out, and would contribute
to grade inflation. Tomhave also speculated that a student who cheated on a
midterm could be caught but escape with a W rather than the failing grade he earned.
Singleton objected that in such a case the academic dishonesty policy would kick in.
Singleton agreed that there might be drawbacks to the policy shift he proposed, but
argued that our current policy is “out in left field” by comparison with sister
institutions. Tomhave thought our distinctiveness in this regard was to our credit.
Singleton disagreed, saying our policies should encourage students and faculty to
work together, and our current W/WF policy doesn’t do that. Hamel concurred that
the early W deadline in our current policy doesn’t encourage faculty and students to
continue trying to make things work into the 4th, 5th, and 6th weeks. Cohen said she
was concerned our current policy is overly punitive by comparison with sister
institutions with respect to our students’ prospects for graduate school. Tomhave
reminded us that the Faculty Senate did not charge us to look for flexibility, but
rather for consistency. Greater consistency, in his view, would appear if the WF were
more consistently applied according to policy. If a student is allowed to withdraw
without penalty up to the 12th week, when does that student commit to the course?
Kirkpatrick said she was coming to like our current policy better the more she heard,
precisely because the lack of consistency in its application was indicative of its
flexibility.
Finney argued we should be structuring our program in the best interest of students.
With an almost “free” W, students will regularly and repeatedly withdraw from
classes, and thereby significantly delay their academic progress. He went on to
characterize what he saw as two distinct viewpoints in our discussion: 1) the theory
that once a student signs on for a class, he is responsible, and he can stick the course
out until the end for a letter grade, with two available variants for failing, an F or a WF
(the latter indicative that he didn’t finish the term); or 2) the theory that a student
who signs on and isn’t getting good results should be able to withdraw without grade
penalty, since loss of credit and tuition dollars is punishment enough. He said he
thought these viewpoints were in conflict, and as a standards committee we should
ask ourselves what sort of standards we want. Singleton responded that our
standards should reflect what we want relationships between students and faculty to
be. Our policies should encourage cooperation, but with our current W/WF policy we
are telling our students too early that staying in a course and giving it a try could
burn you. He said he was in favor of giving students an incentive to stay in a class
and give it their best. Hatch responded that one of the distinctive things she likes
about Puget Sound is that it is challenging and has high standards, and she said she
was uncomfortable “lessening” those standards. She thought moving the W deadline
back to some degree made sense, but not as dramatically as the Singleton motion
proposes.
As the 5:00 hour was upon us, the decision to adjourn was reached by acclamation.
Respectfully submitted by the ASC amanuensis,
Jack Roundy