Carleton University’s Senate passed a motion today giving students the option to be graded using a satisfactory/unsatisfactory grading system for the 2020 winter term.

The motion comes in light of thousands of people signing a petition created March 19 in favour of a pass-fail grading scheme to be implemented at Carleton University, following in the footsteps of other Canadian universities providing optional grading systems amid moving all classes online due to COVID-19 social distancing measures.

According to the motion, moved by Carleton University’s provost and vice-president (academic) Jerry Tomberlin, the option will be provided “on an exceptional basis and without prejudice.”

Now passed, students will have the choice after receiving their final grades for the 2020 winter term to decide whether they want to use their alphabetical grade, or whether they want to have unsatisfactory/satisfactory standing used on a course-by-course basis.

“This ensures that changes in performance due to the current disruption do not affect students’ permanent record as SAT/UNS grades are not used in the calculation of CGPA,” reads the motion on the reasoning behind the new grading option.

All grades D- and higher for undergraduate students will be counted as satisfactory, whereas graduates need a grade of B- or higher for the same designation. All failing grades will automatically be deemed unsatisfactory, according to the motion.

Once the grade has been switched to satisfactory/unsatisfactory, the originally recorded grade will remain on their student record should it be needed, but students will not be allowed to change their mind about the grade they have chosen to use.

Students in prerequisite courses will still have to meet the required prerequisite grade to move on to higher course levels.

The motion passed with a 97 per cent approval rating—with three per cent voting in abstention, according to Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) president Lily Akagbosu who participated in the senate’s first-ever online meeting today.

“This positions students in a better place for sure,” Akagbosu said of the new flexible grading system.

“Is this a perfect solution? Perhaps not, but a perfect solution does not exist in circumstances such as this,” she added.

“The key to this motion is that it is optional,” Akagbosu continued. “So it’s up to you how you want to apply it.”

Akagbosu also spoke about how students participating in the meeting asked a variety of good questions throughout. One of the students asking questions was Board of Governors (BoG) student representative Tyler Boswell.

“I asked the question about how scholarships would be impacted, and basically kind of the overall response to easily summarize from the admin, was that no student should be negatively impacted by opting for [satisfactory/unsatisfactory grading],” Boswell said.

“[Administration is] currently working on trying to reformulate the equation that factors into scholarships, so that if you’re opting for unsatisfactory/satisfactory you won’t be negatively impacted there either,” Boswell added.

Boswell also said although he was aware of the student petition in favour of a more flexible grading system, the petition was not specifically brought up at the meeting.

“The petition was not mentioned,” Boswell said. “But I’d like to think that the petition definitely worked.”

Charlie Hutchinson, the third-year political science and economics student at Carleton University who started the petition under the pseudonym “Concerned Student,” said he is glad administration is moving in the right direction, but feels more could be done.

“Obviously I’m quite happy that the university has taken steps to address some of the inequities that have been exacerbated by the transition to online learning,” Hutchinson said. “But, I feel somewhat conflicted, I’ll admit, because on some things I don’t think the university has gone far enough.”

“The fact that the university is still expecting students to write exams and not giving them the option to opt out—that was something that I’d kind of been hoping might come up in the senate meeting,” he said. “But it looks like they didn’t go quite that far.”

“A lot of the concerns students have could be alleviated by making exams optional,” he added.

Hutchinson said the University of Ottawa’s faculty of social science policy on grading should be the “gold standard and the thing that other universities should be aspiring towards.”

That policy gives University of Ottawa students the option between taking their grade from evaluations prior to instruction moving online, writing the exam and taking the better pre- or post-exam mark, or taking a pass-fail option.

Despite less flexibility being afforded to Carleton University students, Hutchinson said it is important the university listened.

“I really only expected and was hoping to get 1,000 signatures before submitting to the university, but we’re sitting at around 6,500 right now and I really think it just goes to show that there’s really a popular appetite for this kind of policy,” he said.

“It clearly resonated with people.”

Students have until May 29 to request the Registrar’s Office change their grade to satisfactory/unsatisfactory.

Featured image from file. With files from Tim Austen.