Last week Student Government voted on a resolution to change the current plus/minus grading scale. The resolution states that an A- is worth 4 grade points and a B- is worth 3.3 grade points. The original system was bad enough, but making a gap of 0.7 grade points is ridiculous. SG is doing a good job trying to reform the system. The Faculty Senate should go further by approving SGís resolution and creating a scale that is both mandatory for the entire university and distributes grade points evenly.
The way the current system works, resolution aside, when a student receives an A- itís worth 3.67 grade points out of a possible 4. If a student receives an A or A+ itís worth 4 points. This may not seem like a problem, but the plus/minus system is not universal. That means that if one teacher chooses not to use the plus/minus system your A in that class is worth more than the A- you may have struggled for in another class. Also, for those who make Aís on a regular basis, getting even as high as a B+ is going to bring down their GPAs significantly.
The other thing that is troublesome with both the old grading scale and the new ìrevisedî grading scale is that according to USF, an ìaverage performanceî is anywhere from a C+ to a C-, or 2.33 points to 1.67 points. A C- may be good enough to pass all general education and Gordon Rule requirements, but it isnít good enough to graduate. An ìaverage performanceî shouldnít keep a student from graduating.
The grading scale needs to be fixed, but not just to make all the smart people at USF happy. It needs to be improved for all those ìaverageî students, too. The Faculty Senate should take matters into its own hands by making a scale that is evenly distributed and fair for its students.