Brennan plans to bring the C minus issue back to the Senate's table in fall 2007.
In the meantime, the Office of Institutional Research will analyze the grading scale.
At the end of the fall semester, the University will remove C minus from the list of grading options in PeopleSoft. Faculty members will be asked to update their syllabi to reflect the change.
The earliest the grade could return is the fall 2008 -- but that's only if the Senate doesn't vote to eliminate the grade permanently.
The C minus grade currently counts as failing for classes that count toward a student's major or minor. The grade counts as 1.67 quality points per credit hour.
The Student Government Association began campaigning for the elimination of the grade two years ago.
David Butler, the SGA's director of academic affairs, said the decision was an affirmation of his organization's efforts to eliminate the grade.
"I think that without the student argument last year, the Provost wouldn't have been inclined to make the decision that he made," Butler said. "The students brought up this whole situation, this whole argument."
In April, the Senate approved a resolution that allowed the C minus to count in majors in situations where accreditation bodies allow it.
"The students brought up this whole situation, this whole argument."
In April, the Senate approved a resolution that allowed the C minus to count in majors in situations where accreditation bodies allow it.
Brennan was in China at the time and was surprised by the decision when he returned.
Then, in a letter to Senate president Tim Sullivan on June 21, Brennan said he and President Robert Caret had overturned the decision.
"In my view it lowered our academic standards, which I couldn't accept," Brennan said in an interview.
Certain degrees are accredited by organizations that would not allow a grade below 2.0 to count. For this reason, the C minus would be handled differently in certain situations.
Instead of resolving the hesitation surrounding the grade, the Senate's decision made the grade even more ambiguous, Brennan said.
"I really felt that the Senate is not in a position to resolve the issue," Brennan said. "I had no reason to believe that it wouldn't drag on like it did last year. I just wanted to get it off the table for a while."
Many professors do not use the C minus grade, and the ones who do only assign it sparingly.
"This is a perfect starting point for us to argue our cause," Butler said. "It's an opportunity for us to lobby the necessary people to get the C minus eliminated completely."
When Brennan discussed his decision at last Monday's Senate meeting, it became apparent that there had been communication difficulties.
"The Provost's decision to negate the C minus grading decision of the Senate had significantly upset senators, mostly due to the legislative body's not finding out about the decision until [The] Towerlight reported it," mass communication and communication studies professor Richard Vatz said. "While no one in the Senate is sanguine about the Provost's reversing of Senate decisions, it became apparent in yesterday's meeting that he did inform the Senate executive committee of his reversal of the Senate's C minus vote, but that committee did not inform the Senate."
Sullivan said the committee would do a better job of informing the Senate of decisions in the future.
The Senate is facing several important issues this fall, including revisions to Promotion & Tenure documents. Brennan also hopes to address a profound issue of grading: grade inflation.
"I have a proposal that I submitted to the academic standards committee that's asking the committee to look at Latin Honors," Brennan said. "There's a lot of variability from college to college in terms of the percentage of students that get Latin Honors at graduation. In some colleges it's an overwhelming number. In other colleges, it's a small number."
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