Web Update: CCC holds off on plus/minus vote
The College Curriculum Council will consider a proposal to add pluses and minuses to the University grading system at its biweekly meeting Dec. 13.
Although the CCC cannot approve the measure independently, the committee will vote on whether to recommend the proposal to the Faculty Executive Committee. If it is approved by the CCC, the FEC will vote on the change sometime next semester.
Final drafts of the proposal, which was drafted by Dean of the College Paul Armstrong, were not yet available. However, according to CCC member Freya Zaheer '06, previous meetings indicated that the change would allow professors to opt into giving plus/minus grades but would not require them to do so.
Zaheer and CCC member Shyam Sundaram '08 both said there had been no discussion of instituting a grade of D or allowing No Credit grades to appear on transcripts. Zaheer said she expects students will be against the change initially, but that some "secretly suspect that it might make the quality of their work better."
Sundaram and Zaheer said they expect the CCC will pass the proposal.
"I don't see it as a bad thing," Sundaram said. He added that many professors assign plus and minus grades to student work during the semester anyway.
"A grade is just a form of assessment, and (plus/minus grades) offer a greater choice and range to assess you," Sundaram said.
"The predominant idea is that the faculty have wanted it for a long time," Zaheer said. "They think it's only fair that they have more distinctions to more accurately report a student's performance. They see the system as compressed because they can basically give one of two grades."
Zaheer said she was surprised to see the issue on the CCC's agenda this semester, but the body has considered the measure in the past.
In February 2003 the CCC released a report after seven meetings on the issue. The committee's examination of the grading system was prompted by a 2002 Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning poll that found that more than 80 percent of Brown faculty and graduate students who responded favored adding pluses and minuses to the grading system.
The committee's final report concluded that changing the grading system at that time would have been "premature."
Instead, they decided to examine the significance of grades at Brown and in a larger context, as well as explore the issue in campus-wide discussions before making any future changes. Workshops, forums, surveys and online resources were proposed to facilitate input from students, faculty and alums as part of a full consideration of the University's grading system.
Zaheer and Shyamaram said that they did not think any such programs were implemented and that none were discussed in the CCC's meetings this semester.
