April 10, 2000
Senate's vote on grades goes to 'mail ballot'
By Jim Burns
Twenty-seven members of UCSC's Academic Senate have requested that a "mail ballot" be issued asking all 588 members to weigh in on the proposal to implement UC's conventional grading system for entering UCSC students in fall 2001. The request for such a ballot, which can be made by as few as 25 members, had been expected in the wake of the senate's 154-77 vote in February to place UCSC's grading policies in line with other UC campuses.
Mary-Beth Harhen, director of the senate office, said her office received the request on March 31. Arguments representing both sides of the issue--and rebuttal arguments--will be part of the ballot that is mailed to senate members. Harhen estimated that the ballots would be distributed by the first week of May; senate members will have approximately two weeks once the ballots are distributed to submit their vote on the matter. The grades resolution will be decided by a simple majority.
Harhen expects the outcome of the vote to be known prior to the next senate meeting,
scheduled for May 31. At that meeting, senators are scheduled to discuss the campus's
traditional Narrative Evaluation System (NES). George Brown, chair of the senate's
Committee on Educational Policy (CEP), has said that his committee would present
legislation that would "reform" the NES, not do away with it.
In the grading legislation that is the subject of the mail ballot, students entering
in fall 2001 would continue to be able to take courses on a Pass/No Pass (P/NP) basis.
But no more than 25 percent of the UCSC course work applied toward graduation credit
could be taken on a P/NP basis.
The grading legislation also introduces plus (+) and minus (-) modifiers for grades (A, B, and C only) and would require that a notation of NP be recorded on the student's transcript; the present UCSC policy does not record NP work.
The May 31 meeting, which will take place in Classroom Unit 2, begins at 2 p.m. (one hour earlier than customary).
Previous stories on the grades/NES:
Academic Senate adopts UC's conventional grading system (Feb. 28, 2000)
Debate on NES continues at Convocation on Teaching (Feb. 21, 2000)
Annual Convocation on Teaching will focus on NES (Feb. 14, 2000)
NES forums continue; decision expected at senate meeting (Jan. 31, 2000)
First 'narratives' forum produces two quite different perspectives (Jan. 24, 2000)
Continuing the discussion of the NES (Jan. 10, 2000)
Senate narrowly postpones vote on narrative evaluations (Dec. 6, 1999)
Proposal to eliminate 'narratives' goes before Academic Senate (Nov. 22, 1999)
