On January 27, 2003, it is anticipated that the Academic Senate will take up the issue of whether ASU should adopt a plus/minus grading system. That meeting should involve little more than introducing the resolution(s) that raise the issue. A final discussion and vote on plus/minus should come at the February 27 meeting. In the mean time, the ASU community is encouraged to inform itself on the issues surrounding plus/minus and participate in the debate.
In its 1992 Resolution 23 the Academic Senate approved a plus/minus grading system for ASU. However, University President Lattie Coor delayed its authorization, pending a report from Information Technology (IT) that such a system was feasible. That feasibility was not established until the Fall, 2001, semester, prompting Senate President Morton Munk to appoint an Ad Hoc Committee to review the issues surrounding the adoption of a plus/minus grading system.
The Committee identified eight different grading systems in use at institutional peers and other selected universities around the nation, noting even some minor variations within those eight (see Table 1 in the full report). Studies from MIT, North Carolina State University, and Wake Forest were supplemented with testimony from a number of individuals involved with student grading policies and practices at ASU to produce a set of pros and cons for each of the eight grading systems.
The major argument in favor of plus/minus grading is that it provides faculty with a finer grading mechanism that more accurately reflects the level of student performance. This argument has been persuasive in the adoption of plus/minus systems among all other schools in the PAC-10, except the University of Arizona, as well as the vast majority of ASUís institutional peers. This widespread adoption is, in itself, used to argue its adoption here. Proponents view plus/minus as a more rigorous system that toughens standards at the highest grade levels while encouraging students to perform better because the next higher grade level is more easily within reach than in a system without pluses and minuses.
Opponents of plus/minus are less likely to believe that grades can be so finely determined. Even granting that, however, it seems clear that fewer students will be able to maintain a GPA at the highest level of summa cum laude (3.8 and higher), raising the question of whether plus/minus will hamper recruitment of the very best students if ASU is the only university in the state to have plus/minus. Even more serious is the problem at the grade level of C–, which translates to a 1.67 grade point. If a grade of C is retained as the minimum required for ìsuccessî in oneís major and many other upper division courses, then plus/minus raises that standard. For example, grades of 70, 71, and 72, which are typically good for a C grade now, would suddenly be a C–, no longer acceptable as a passing grade. On the other hand, if C– is accepted as passing, it raises the distinct possibility that one could pass all classes and yet have less than a 2.0 GPA, which is less than successful academic standing for athletes and others and for graduation.
A majority of the Committee recommends that ASU retain a grading system without plus/minus options. However, if one is adopted, the Committee believes it should be the one currently in use at MIT and the University of Maryland. Faculty may assign +/– grades at the A, B, C, and D levels and those grades appear on a studentís transcript. However, for purposes of GPA calculation, the plus/minus assignations do not affect the GPA. Thus, grades of A+, A, and A– all count 4.0; B+, B, and B– are all 3.0, and so on. The Committee sees this as combining the strengths of both sides of the issue, permitting the finer grading as a matter of record while diminishing the negative consequences of plus/minus.