The Student Association Senate passed a resolution Tuesday requesting that the university adopt an academic forgiveness policy.
If the policy is adopted, MSU would join the seven other schools in the region to have such a policy.
The policy was brought before the Senate in a motion made by Sen. Jeremy England, senator for the college of arts and sciences.
If accepted by the university, the plan would allow students to retake certain classes in which they made poor grades. The newer grade would be accepted and count toward the students’ GPA.
“The Faculty Senate has shut this down in the past,” England said, citing similar plans that the Faculty Senate rejected.
One stipulation of the policy states that in order for students to be allowed to retake a course, they must show special circumstances like a such as a medical emergency or “failure to understand or communicate with a professor.”
England said one of the more contested areas of the policy was the grade level at which a student would be allowed to retake a course. Over the past few years the SA has tried to convince the university to approve a forgiveness policy but has been denied because of certain parts of the plans.
The newer policy stipulates that “a student may take up to two courses, not to exceed seven credit undergraduate semester hours, in which he or she made a ‘D’ or ‘F’…”
England said this was one of the suggestions made by the faculty senate the last time a forgiveness policy was brought before it. Some of the other changes in this proposed policy were that originally the plan had allowed more than two classes to be retaken and the first grade to be dropped from the transcript altogether.
Some senators expressed concern over some of the outlines in the new policy. One major concern involved not allowing students who made C’s in a class to retake the course.
Sen. Lauren Hancock said the Senate would need “to give a little, to get a little.” In order for the policy to be considered by the Faculty Senate again, the Senate would have to accept that classes in which the student made a “C” grade would not be considered for this policy.
Sen. Erica Wells asked if the faculty advisers would be the ones to determine what constitutes as a special circumstance, since the policy only allows students in those situations retake a course.
Richard Heard, the director for academic affairs for the SA, said, “We wanted advisers to be able to make sure that the student wasn’t just slacking off.”
Stipulations of the policy include:
After three votes, the Senate passed the resolution unanimously.
If the Faculty Senate approves, the resolution for an academic forgiveness policy with the recommendations of both senate bodies would go before the appropriate administration committees.
The SA Senate also passed resolutions recognizing Jackie Sherrill for 13 years as head football coach and honoring the memory of Fred Fault, a photographer for University Relations. Faulk died Saturday.
Proposed
policy
highlights
*The original grade will remain on the transcript but not count towards the student’s GPA.
*The second grade will be counted into the GPA, even if the new grade is lower than the original score.
*The original grade will be used to generate the student’s GPA until the final second grade is issued.
*The student’s faculty adviser and academic dean must approve the request, and all requests must be filed in the Registrar’s Office before 5 p.m. on the last day to add classes.
*The student may only retake a certain course one time, and it must take place on an MSU campus.
*Students will not be granted any special treatment with regards to scheduling the course, meaning they will not be allowed to be forced into the course.
*Any course that is retaken cannot count towards the 12-hour minimum requirement to remain as a full-time student.