Senate discusses proposal to tighten policy on 'R' grades

In introducing the resolution, Committee Chair Thomas Schroeder, associate professor of learning and instruction, noted that there have been a growing number of requests for the retroactive awarding of "R" grades.

In the fall 1995 semester, there were 609 courses for which students requested "R" grades well after the deadline, he said. Of those requests, 527, or 87 percent, were approved. In the spring 1996 semester, there were 925 such requests, with 809, or 87 percent, being approved.

"I would be concerned that the word has gotten out among undergraduate students that it is possible to get these requests approved, even in somewhat questionable circumstances," he said.

In fact, he added, one administrator who is responsible for considering requests for administrative resignations told him that many students who request these grades retroactively "are de facto cleaning up their records."

Current policy allows a student who experiences extraordinary circumstances-such as a lengthy illness-to resign from a specific course without a Q.P.A. penalty up to 11 weeks after the beginning of the semester for first-time freshmen and first-time transfer students, and up to eight weeks for all others. The student must have supporting documentation and the approval of the instructor of the course.

But, Schroeder said, there have been numerous cases where students seek administrative "Rs" well after the deadline.

To address this, the committee proposed a provision that would require that students seeking "R" grades after the deadline resign from all courses taken during the semester.

Students who are able to complete some, but not all, of their courses during a semester can apply for an incomplete, Schroeder said.

This "all-or-nothing" stipulation had prompted some opposition among members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, who thought it would prove a hardship for students, while adding significantly to the workload of faculty members who would be inundated by requests for incompletes.

Some senators agreed.

Powhatan Wooldridge, associate professor of Nursing, said that while he supported the general intent of the policy, he thought it would be a mistake to "formulate policies in a rigid fashion when there may be numerous exceptions to the policy that can validly be made."

Michael Ryan, associate dean for undergraduate education in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, said that in his experience, "the majority of these requests are for legitimate reasons."

The all-or-none provision is too rigid, he said, making it "difficult to deal with real problems that students have."

But other faculty members strongly supported the all-or-nothing provision.

Jack Meacham, professor of psychology, said that he has noticed in the past few years a marked increase in the number of students requesting administrative "Rs."

"I can look back through my records and see that the students who have health problems in November are also the students who got 'Ds' and 'Fs' on the first midterm," he said.

He acknowledged that there certainly will be some legitimate requests for "R" grades.

"But it's very clear to me that the administrative withdrawals are being very much overused in my classes," he said. While he added that many of these requests are accompanied by documentation, "the coincidence is just too much for me to believe; students are using these to clean up their records."

Chuck Fourtner, professor of biological sciences, noted that the deadline for requests for administrative "Rs" comprises half of a course.

"And so if a student goes through half the course or three-quarters of the course and then comes back and asks for an administrative 'R,' basically what they've done is bypass the particular time that they were allowed to make the request, they've done poorly in the course and essentially they want out of it, they don't want the grade."

Fourtner said he's heard the argument "about being really fair to the student.

"The problem is, that when you're fair to that student, you're unfair to every other student in the course," he said.

Fourtner added that students who receive fair grades, whatever they may be, "should not be treated unfairly by the squeaking wheels who know how to work the system to get their 'Ds' and 'Fs' taken care of."

If faculty are unwilling to grant an incomplete simply because a student was sick for the final exam, he added, "then we have to rethink our responsibilities to the students on this campus. We have to consider the incomplete as a reliable designation of a student's activity for a course for a semester."

Jeannette Ludwig, associate professor of modern languages and literatures, said that many of the requests for "Rs" she receives come as much as two years after the student has taken the course.

This "signals a kind of cavalier attitude toward one's progress toward degree and toward the sort of implicit contract that signing up for courses maintains," she said.

She urged the committee to add a sentence to the resolution "that governs the philosophy of the document; that is, we have to recognize that some students will get grades that they'll be disappointed with."

Students may withdraw from a course for illness or other reasons, but there has to be recognition that there is not a loophole for every situation, "or otherwise there is this sense that 'Is' are an entitlement."

It must be pointed out, she stressed, that incompletes may be granted to students if, for some compelling reason, they are not able to complete the final portion of the work in a course, providing they are passing the course; an administrative withdrawal is for some compelling reason "that does not have to do with academic progress toward completion of the course."

Senate Chair Claude Welch, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Political Science, said the resolution, with likely revisions, will come before the Senate for a vote before the end of the semester.