Grade Appeal

UNIVERSITY SENATE GRADE APPEAL POLICY SHOWS PROMISE DESPITE MINOR FLAWS

The Issue:
Pacification of grade appeals causes the grades and even the degrees to lose their meaning.

We Suggest:
The University senate should take steps to strengthen this proposal to allow for further inquiries past the faculty committee level. By doing so the senate should alleviate further biases on the part of the committee.

So What Do You Think?
Let us hear from you. Submit a letter to the editor on this or any issue.

The University senate holds its first meeting of the semester today, and one of the items coming up for a vote is a revision of the student grade appeal procedures. The document itself is small, only about two and a half pages long, and written in the anonymous language common to legislative proposals. In many places it might easily go unnoticed, but we would like to highlight some of the issues it addresses, issues that are of tremendous importance to students and faculty alike.
Academic freedom is one of the most important concepts on this or any other campus. If we take away the right of faculty members to give grades and to make those grades stick, we undermine what a university stands for. When the idea gets out that grades are not based on merit alone but also on who has the loudest voice, on who can raise the biggest stink, then the grading process itself loses meaning. Then the degrees lose meaning. Academia can already seem alien to many people without putting up any additional walls.
We are not unsympathetic to the plight of administration. While the University's size lends it some protection, it also leaves it vulnerable. The temptation to pacify people instead of taking a stand is always there and can seem very persuasive when the alternatives may involve lawsuits in the multi-millon dollar range. Nonetheless, it is a temptation that must be resisted.
We support the idea of a faculty committee and of keeping the appeal close to the faculty level for as long as possible. It is not fair to the students to let unqualified persons review their cases, nor is it fair to an administrator to be put in the position of having to make those kinds of decisions when there are other alternatives. It is certainly not fair to the faculty members, who in such cases have their professional standing called into question and all too often walk away only after being slapped in the face.
However, there is a weak link in the senate proposal. Specifically, it does not allow for enough appeal past the faculty committee level. A student who feels the committee acted improperly may turn to the dean, who then decides whether the committee followed the outlined procedures. If the dean feels they did, the appeal ends. If the dean feels otherwise, then the case returns to the same committee for reconsideration. There is not enough protection for the students or the University to guard against bias on the part of the committee.
While one hopes that professionalism and public scrutiny would be enough to keep things level, human nature offers too many indications to the contrary. It would be all too easy for a committee formed of members of the same department or closely related departments to have bias towards one of their colleagues, even if they sincerely intended otherwise.
Also, it would be far too easy for a student to claim there was bias on the part of the committee, even if there was not. People have a way of making claims when they don't want to admit they were wrong. And that gets us back to lawsuits again.
So while the ideas embodied in this proposed revision are a step in the right direction, there are other issues that still need to be addressed.