Arizona college students want to change how they're graded as coronavirus disrupts everything

Nothing is the same for Arizona college students as it was one month ago, thanks to COVID-19.

Most have moved out of dorms. Their classes have moved online. Labs and performing arts classes now bear little resemblance to normal.

But one thing hasn't changed, at least at some colleges: They're still being graded.

Arizona college students have joined a chorus of students from across the country in lobbying their schools to stop grading them on a traditional letter scale this semester. Instead, they are asking for a pass or fail system.

It's hard enough to manage the major disruptions caused by COVID-19 without having to worry about grades, they argue. Moving to online classes brings its own difficulties, too, as some subjects typically require in-person, hands-on elements that don't translate well to video.

Pass/fail grading allows students to receive either a P for pass or F for fail instead of a standard A-F letter grades. Students in favor of this grading option say it helps ensure they learn the required material sufficiently without adding in the pressure of letter grades.

Their efforts have gained traction in other states, as some colleges changed to pass/fail grading after student petitions gained steam.

But so far, efforts by students at Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University haven't succeeded in convincing administrators. The University of Arizona, however, is allowing students to request pass/fail grading from professors.

The argument in favor of pass/fail grading focuses on how students from more privileged backgrounds likely will fare better without a change. All students have to weather the pandemic, but some have lost their income, and their parents have lost income. Some don't have family safety nets to fall back on. Some are struggling to find a safe place to stay or healthy food to eat. Some are getting sick, or their family members are. Some don't have reliable internet access.

The fair move is to take grades off the table for now, they say.

"The students that may be subject to homes in which they don't have decent internet access, or they're concerned about their parents and very anxious about what's going to be happening for the rest of the world, those are the students that are going to be very, very disenfranchised," said Alejandro Urbina, a 19-year-old sophomore honors student studying aerospace engineering at Arizona State University.

"And there are many more of them than there are students that might not get their 4.0."

What Arizona's universities are doing

At ASU, several internet petitions started by students call on the university to change classes to a pass/fail option instead of letter grades or to apply a curve. So far, the university hasn't budged.

Urbina has reached out to the provost, the vice provost and the president. He’s also reached out to individual professors.

In an emailed response to Urbina, Vice Provost Frederick Corey explained that ASU has more technology and experience for working online than other universities. He said that grades are important to students, employers and graduate programs. It wouldn’t be fair to high-achieving students to institute pass/fail options, Corey wrote.

“To award everyone performing at A, B, C or D levels a grade of Passing is unfair to those who excel in their classes and could, ultimately, be a significant disservice to students with high aspirations for graduate school, law school, medical school or other endeavors where grades play an important role in competitive admissions,” Corey’s email to Urbina said.

The university's official response reiterates the point that letter grades are important and it wouldn't be fair to eliminate them.

"Faculty have a responsibility to provide consistent, fair and sufficient opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery of course content," ASU spokeswoman Katie Paquet said. "This can be accomplished in an online environment. During this transition to remote learning, faculty may make adjustments to assignments and assessment activities, and they have an obligation to tell students how mastery will be assessed and evaluated."

Students should communicate with professors if they need accommodations with deadlines or other changes in their classes, Paquet said.

"We understand the stresses of the COVID-19 situation, but changing the grading system is not an action we believe to be appropriate at this time," she said.

Additionally, while COVID-19 has “exacerbated stressful situations” for students, many dealt with “similar stresses pre-COVID-19,” Paquet said. The university is working with students constantly to address any issues they may experience and has told faculty to be as accommodating as possible, she said.

ASU's law school has a "pre-existing policy" that allows for students to request grading changes, including pass/fail options, for any difficult life events, Paquet said. Those requests are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Students outside the law school also can submit appeals on their grades, which are reviewed by a faculty committee, she said.

But at the University of Arizona, administrators are now allowing students to change a course to pass/fail if they want. An individual student can ask for a class to be counted as pass/fail for them up until the last day of classes, an email to students from Provost Liesl Folks states.

Courses taken as pass/fail will count toward program requirements and will meet prerequisite requirements as long as a student earns a passing grade, Folks wrote.

UA also changed policies for withdrawing from classes, retaking classes and academic eligibility, the email said.

"The entire University of Arizona community is committed to your success and hope that these additional options and accommodations will help you focus on completing your courses while managing through all of the stressors this pandemic may have caused," Folks wrote.

At Northern Arizona University, a decision on pass/fail or other grading options hasn't yet been made, spokeswoman Kimberly Ott said in an email.

"NAU is currently exploring all options," Ott said. "No decision has been made as we are still in discussions with leadership and faculty."

Some colleges already changed grading

In Florida, three large state universities announced March 24 they would switch to pass/fail grading in response to student petitions.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison declared on March 26 that the "unprecedented situation" called for a pass/fail grading option. Allowing the option means other academic policies may have to adjust, too, the school said.

"Maintaining instruction and the quality of academics is and has been our most important campus goal, short of preserving the health and safety of our community," the university said. "Recognizing that our lives have been significantly impacted by COVID-19, our grading and credit policies must adapt."

Ivy League schools, the country's most elite institutions, have largely put some type of alternative grading in place, either as an option or mandatory change. Students at some of these universities are now pushing for "universal pass," where every student passes this semester. Students at Yale University, for instance, are now behind a movement called "No Fail Yale."

Clemson University in South Carolina said a few of its courses could be taken pass/fail, but otherwise the university has not heeded a student petition with thousands of signatures.

Aleah Cherry, who started the Clemson petition, said she was concerned about keeping up with the demands of being a STEM major in online classes.

“I started voicing my concerns to my friends when I realized they were worried too,” Cherry said. “I have friends with ADHD and learning disabilities who already struggle with learning in the classroom and others who have never taken online classes and we are concerned that the switch to online will negatively affect (our) academic performance.”

Little time to adjust to online classes

Samantha Sabbara started a Change.org petition calling on ASU to grade classes on a curve. The petition now has more than 17,000 signatures. At least two petitions for ASU to go pass/fail have more than 1,000 signatures.

Sabbara is a sophomore majoring in genetics. Many of her classes this semester are intense science classes with hands-on components that aren't translating as well online, she said.

It may take a couple weeks for both students and professors to get used to the new formats, and there's not much time left in the semester to adjust, she said.

"We also have this new fear of the coronavirus and making sure our families are safe and that we're safe," Sabbara said. "People are losing their jobs, people are having to move out of dorms. There's a lot more happening than just our classes moving online."

Urbina, the ASU engineering student, knows he has privileges that his classmates may not. He has a stable internet connection. He was able to move back to his family's home in Phoenix.

But he knows others who don't have reliable internet for their classes or safe home environments to return to.

"What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to return back to ASU and use the library? ASU says that you can do that, but do you really expect students to come back to where Arizona's epicenter for disease has been? Or do you want them to go outside? I don't understand how ASU can say that we're concerned for our students' health, but at the same time, ask them to go risk their lives."

Reporter Zoe Nicholson of the Greenville News, a part of the USA TODAY Network, contributed to this story.

Reach reporter Rachel Leingang by email at rachel.leingang@gannett.com or by phone at 602-444-8157, or find her on Twitter and Facebook.

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