Faculty says change grades

The Boise State Faculty Senate recently passed a bill that could mean good news for your grade point average. On Tuesday, Nov. 14, the Faculty Senate approved a bill to replace the current grade averaging policy with a revamped grade replacement policy.

Since 1995, Boise State has used grade averaging to determine a student’s grade. Previous to 1995, grade replacement was used.

With grade averaging, students can retake a failed course, but then the grades of those two (or more) courses will be averaged together to determine the final grade.

Grade replacement also allows a student to retake a class. The grade of the most recent class is then used to compute the student’s GPA. In the majority of cases, the most recent class has the better grade.

While grade replacement can improve a student’s GPA, all courses, including failed ones, are shown on transcripts.

After lobbying efforts by the Student Senate last year, the Faculty Senate asked the Academic Standards Committee to look into the policy of grade averaging.

Several factors were involved in the proposal to change the policy. The committee found that many students, because of personal circumstances or other concerns may have done poorly in a class or in several classes. With grade averaging, students often found it impossible to catch up and maintain a good GPA.

Circumstances that hinder students’ academic performance can be a problem on a campus like Boise State, where there are many non-traditional students. When not following a strict four-year plan, many students face obstacles that can lengthen the period it takes to obtain a degree.

“A grade should be measuring not how quickly you learn,” said Jack Hourcade, member of the Faculty Senate. “It should measure how much you learn.”

Another contributing factor in the proposal was that the majority of universities across the country use grade replacement.

Also, comparative GPAs from a school with grade averaging can often be lower.

“A student from the University of Idaho can have a higher GPA than a Boise State student with the exact same course content,” said Hourcade. “It’s not fair to Boise State students.”

Some students even find grade averaging tends to discourage them from retaking a class.

“Where’s the incentive to go through a hard class again if your grade might not improve that much?” asked ASBSU Senator Nick Leonardson.

Leonardson lobbied the Faculty Senate last year to reconsider the grade averaging policy.

Richard Pompian, chair of the Academic Standards Committee, found that Boise State faculty was greatly in favor of grade replacement.

“We polled faculty members about what they thought the best policy was,” said Pompian. “The plurality wanted grade replacement.”

The grade replacement policy will likely go into effect for the Fall 2001 semester.

Christina Latta

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