Council Clippings Senate and House

Representatives held their first issue meeting of the semester Tuesday night. Issue meetings are extended open forums in which representatives and guests discuss a given topic.

Up for consideration this week was grade forgiveness or “grade substitution.” A grade substitution policy is one that allows students to retake failed classes and substitute the second grade for the first.

Several members of the Academic Affairs committee studied the issue before Tuesday’s meeting, and the group reported that grade substitution is already being discussed by the administration.

“It’s been considered, researched and suggestions are in the works,” said one group member. The group reported that several peer institutions have substitution policies. They also stated that grade substitution was “not a student idea” but that it was generated from within the administration.

Representatives raised a number of questions about the final form any such policy might take.

Sophomore class President Mindy Park raised a concern about abuse of substitution. Freshman representative Tiffany Schoenhoff wondered whether students would be required to take the course with the same instructor or not.

One representative asked why many administrators seemed to favor a grade substitution policy. Student Body President Nate Watson said Tech’s graduation rate is 69 percent after six years, which is very low compared to other universities.

“A 69 percent graduation rate devalues all our degrees,” he said. If the graduation rate were higher, Watson said he believes Tech could be ranked the 16th best school in the nation. Employers see the low rate as a sign that “something [is] institutionally wrong.”

Sophomore representative Andrew Howard said he opposed any form of grade substitution. He said there are other things wrong with Tech that contribute to the low rate, and that grade substitution would adversely affect the quality of a Tech degree.

Others said substitution would not effect the rigor of individual classes. After discussion, House members moved to refer the matter to committee.

Representatives also heard from Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Bob McMath, who spoke about the Speak Up survey. The report, which he distributed to House members, was a study of student, faculty and staff attitudes toward academics at Tech.

He said the positive and negative comments often mirrored each other. One student would report a good experience with a professor, while another would report a bad one.

McMath said he wants a concrete set of action items developed from the list by the end of fall semester. “Then I want to see how far down the list we can go,” he said.

Representatives asked McMath how he would judge the success of the program and how he would enforce steps among faculty. McMath said that the first step is to make sure that the most obvious steps, like providing a syllabus and maintaining office hours, are being carried out. He also said enforcement or “strong encouragement” would not be easy.

After the issue meeting and McMath’s address, representatives moved into old business.

An initial motion to untable a joint allocation to a Mid-autumn Festival and Chinese cultural exhibition failed, but a second motion successfully moved the bill into discussion. Organization representatives had attended House meetings for the past three meetings. Vice President of Academic Affairs Tiffany Turner moved to cut funding for technicians, but Howard said that because the House had pushed back action on the bill for two weeks, the funding item should not be cut. The bill passed unamended.

Representatives also passed two joint allocation bills totalling nearly $10,000 for TEAM Buzz as well as a joint allocation bill to the Association for Computer Machinery. The ACM bill funded a teams trip to Daytona to compete in a programming competition.

Two bills were moved from new to old business. The first, an allocation to Freshman Activities Board, would pay for the rights to show Animal House at a toga party geared to freshmen.

“Any event that gets Tech guys close to Tech girls in togas is a good event,” said Vice President of Campus Affairs Ben Lawder. The bill passed.

The second, an allocation to Leadership Enhancement and Resource Network (LEARN). LEARN is a mentoring program that pairs freshmen with upperclassmen. The bill also passed.