Dec. 3, 2012
Jonathan Toman
[email protected]
Many students wish that the bad grade they got in a class would just vanish and that the grade they received when they retook the class would be the grade that stayed.
While that option has been approved by students, the UCCS Student Government Association aims to enforce it so it becomes policy.
SGA has created a petition to help institute a concept known as grade forgiveness at UCCS. Current policy on campus dictates that if a student gets a “D” or an “F” in a class, they can retake the same class and the two scores (previous and retaken) are averaged to create the final grade.
The process of grade forgiveness, if instituted, would allow the new score to completely replace the old grade in the class.
The petition itself asks students to “re-commit themselves to the vote they placed in the spring,” according to Stephen Collier, SGA student body president.
In the spring ballot, students voted overwhelmingly for grade forgiveness by a vote of 1,049 to 89 with 27 abstaining. This vote, though a clear 92 percent majority, had no impact on academic policy at UCCS.
The results of that vote on the spring ballot were forwarded to the Educational Policies and University Standards Committee for their knowledge and possible action. No action was taken, forcing the petition.
The electronic version of the petition had 119 signatures as of Nov. 29, and SGA will be starting a pen-and-ink petition drive as well.
SGA hopes “to send the petition signatures to both faculty at large and the Faculty Assembly, the faculty’s representative arm, to show them students are just as serious about grade forgiveness today as they were in March,” said Collier.
Once the petition ends, Collier will take the signatures to both faculty and the Faculty Assembly. Then, he will send out a letter to clubs and organizations, as well as asking SGA senators to send the letter to their respective schools of study. This process “will allow for a wide dissemination of information that is within SGA control,” Collier said.
As far as how students can get involved, there are a few options available. “Students can digitally sign the online petition or seek SGA members out and about the campus to sign the pen-and-ink petition,” Collier said.
To sign the online petition, students can access it through social media by going to the student body president’s Facebook page at facebook.com/UCCSSteve.
Collier added, “They can also come to the ROAR office (now Student Life and Leadership office) to sign the petition as well.”