By LILY REAVIS ’21 & DECLAN LANGTON ’22
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Jon Western announced a new grading scheme for the remainder of the semester via a student-wide email on March 17.
“I realize this is a very difficult and challenging moment for all of us and that for many of us our concerns are focused at the moment on our families, friends and the broader communities to which we all belong,” the email read. “And I am confident that we will provide you with a strong, exciting and intellectually fulfilling academic program.”
The new grading system allows students to choose a Credit/No Credit (CR/NC) option for all courses taken in the spring 2020 semester, with an extended deadline of June 30, 2020. With that deadline, students are able to see their final class grades before deciding how they will show on their transcripts. Students who opt in will be able to replace their transcript letter grade with either a “CR,” if they earn higher than a D- in a class, or a “NC,” in the event of failure.
Under the College’s normal grading system, students may opt to take one course per semester CR/NC. The credits for any of these courses generally do not count toward major or minor requirements. However, due to this semester’s extingent circumstances, students may elect to take multiple courses CR/NC, and all credits will count toward College requirements, except in the event of course failure.
After that announcement, Hall said she “got a lot of feedback from students and families that they were really relieved that that was the choice that the College had made and that that seemed fair and reasonable and gave a lot of autonomy to students.”
Since then, over 1,000 students and Mount Holyoke community members have signed a petition calling for the College to instead implement a different grading system, called “Double-A.”
The Double-A grading system would guarantee that all students would receive a final grade of either “A” or “A-” in all of their courses for the semester.
The petition, written by Anne-Gail Moreland ’20, states, “When our housing, income, and safety are all uncertain, the last thing we should have to worry about is our grades.”
“Students at Harvard, Yale, and colleges across the country are already successfully pushing for this to be the policy at their institutions,” it continues. “Mount Holyoke ought to do the same.”
On March 27, Western provided an update via email to the student body, outlining Mount Holyoke’s response to rising questions and suggestions about grading systems and officially acknowledged the proposal for a “Double-A” grading system.
According to Western’s letter, co-signed by Dean of Studies and Director of Student Success and Advising Amber Douglass, the decision on what grading structure to use was made based on two principles. The first, ensuring “that students stay engaged in the intellectual discovery at the heart of their courses, while recognizing that there are many different learning environments and creating more flexible opportunities for students to complete their work,” and the second, ensuring “that no student's GPA is adversely impacted by events this semester beyond their control.”
In response to the “Double-A” proposal, the letter said it would “preclude work completed this semester from being induced in a students’ aggregate GPA calculation. These grades would not necessarily reflect the knowledge and skills acquired that form the basis of a recorded accredited grade and therefore would have to be separated from the cumulative GPA.”
The letter encourages students to be in contact with their faculty members, advisors and class deans if they have concerns about specific circumstances.
More updates will follow as information becomes available.