After a 90-minute discussion Monday afternoon, the University Senate rejected a Student Government Association proposal to modify the way student Grade Point Averages are calculated.
The Senate decided by a vote of 8 to 12 that plus and minus grades will continue to be calculated in students' GPAs. The group yielded no clear consensus about the University's controversial grading system.
"Look at all the students that came here today," SGA Vice President Darcy Accardi said, pointing to the dozens of students who had filled Rooms 314-316 of the University Union. "This is an important issue for students, and we wanted to show that to you."
Six students led a 20-minute presentation detailing their objections to the current grading policy.
"The students with me, and I'm sure many of the students that have come out today, feel that the system as it is now is, at best, illogical," senior history major James Baker said in the beginning of the presentation.
SGA President Mark Schlosser stressed many professors still aren't using the plus/minus system, despite the fact that it was mandated for all faculty members last spring.
"We're still in the same predicament we were in last year, faced with inconsistencies in grading policies among classes and across sections," Schlosser said. "This lack of uniformity...has left us with a grading policy that remains unjust to students."
SGA senator Mike Forte said the system is unfair because students have different professors using different policies.
"If you speak to a lot of students on campus, you'll find that many of them have at least one professor who do not use the policy," Forte said.
The SGA presentation described several faults of the grading system before offering an alternative.
"Our system puts good students at a disadvantage," a PowerPoint presentation pointed out.
Forte, a senior history and social science major, cited an SGA survey that said 70 percent of students are opposed to the plus/minus grading policy.
Some faculty members disregarded the survey data because only 143 students were polled. But Accardi said she firmly believed a survey of the entire campus would yield the same results.
On Wednesday, Accardi said the SGA plans to put a survey online so students can easily share their opinion about the plus/minus grading system.
At the end of the presentation, Accardi proposed Towson should implement a grading policy similar to the one at the University of Maryland College Park. UMD uses plus/minus grading, but does not calculate the plusses or minuses in the GPA. The plus/minus grades still appear on the transcript, though.
She said the system would ensure professors still have the ability to differentiate among students, while eliminating the problems with the current system.
However, Assistant to the Provost Bill Reuling noted College Park is the only university in the state to use that type of grading system, and said it was implemented as a compromise after officials couldn't agree on a system.
"I think that people forget that when we actually created the plus/minus grading system, it was at the request of the students who felt they were being unfairly evaluated," Reuling said.
Associate Provost Deborah Leather said calculating plus/minus grades as A's, B's and C's would have negative consequences.
"You are going to hurt a lot more students on the plus side...than you are going to help to fix the C minus," she said.
Several faculty members expressed support for the SGA's proposal, despite confusion regarding what motion was actually on the table. As the Senate's faculty members argued about how to proceed with motions and amendments, the SGA senators in the audience joked they knew parliamentary procedure better than the faculty members.
The student members of the Senate returned to the fact the grading policy is still inconsistent.
"This is a system that cannot be successful without support from an overwhelming majority of faculty, and we do not have that here at Towson," Schlosser said.
But Craig Johnson, academic standards committee chair, suggested patience.
"To expect that in the course of one semester, or even two, that all the faculty on campus, both the full time and hundreds of adjuncts, are going to come around to the new grading system...I think that's unpractical," Johnson said.
Geography professor Martin Roberge, who said a survey of his Fall semester students showed "overwhelming" opposition to the current grading system, referred to the grade distributions provided by Leather.
"Faculty members have really been weighting heavily toward straight grades -- A's, B's, C's," Roberge said. "They're staying away from the plus/minuses, and now they're required to use the plus/minuses, but they still don't seem to be using it...It seems like faculty are voting with their feet and they seem to be saying they don't like plus/minus."
By 6 p.m., the Senate brought the issue to a vote. Faculty members were not convinced the SGA's proposal was preferable.
"This is bullshit," senior business major Catherine Lee said after sitting through the two-hour meeting. "They weren't listening at all."
Accardi said the SGA hopes to put the issue back on the agenda for the Senate's March meeting.
"I think we may have opened their eyes about the C minus grade," Accardi said. "I don't see why we should settle if the majority of campus isn't happy."
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