Staff Writer
As of now, SU’s decision on the plus/minus grading system has been made: the faculty recommends that Salisbury University keep its existing undergraduate grading system.
Information regarding the Salisbury University Faculty Senate was presented in the graphic shown in the Feb. 11 issue. There is a significant difference between the votes of the faculty and those of the faculty senate.
The graphic showed that 85.1 percent of the faculty voted to recommend plus/ minus grades in a “Faculty Senate Trial Vote.” The Faculty Senate voted on this recommendation at its Dec. 3, 2013 meeting. The vote was 9 against, 8 in favor.
Faculty who did not agree with this result petitioned for a faculty meeting, which occurred on Feb. 7. If a quorum of the full-time faculty assembled, the issue could be discussed and a vote taken that might overturn the senate’s decision. Not enough faculty members attended.
Without meeting a quorum, no formal decision could be made. However, the faculty who did attend decided to take a non-binding vote on the plus/minus recommendation, which data was misleadingly shown in the “Faculty Senate Trial Vote” graphic.
President of the Faculty Senate Elizabeth Ragan explained that SU has 420 full-time faculty members, and all the straw poll reveals is that at least 29 percent of SU’s faculty support plus/minus grades.
“It would be more correct to say that about a third of the faculty want plus/ minus grades,” Ragan said. “The difficulty, from a Faculty Senate perspective, is understanding how many faculty actually oppose the proposal, and how many don’t have strong opinions one way or the other.”
Even if a plus/minus grading system were adopted, Ragan estimates it would take about a year before students would begin to receive plus/minus grades, since it would be a major policy change.
Although as of now a decision has been made, this is an issue that could very well come up every few years, and the number of faculty who would like the option of pluses and minuses appears to be growing.
Ragan has heard from faculty who are considering renewing the motion in the senate sometime this year. No one has formally proposed such a renewal at this time, but there is a possibility that it could come before the senate again.