Carleton Senate approved a new grading policy for first-year students entering undergraduate programs at Carleton with no previous post-secondary enrollment. The policy will come into effect this fall.
First-year students will be able to take 2.0 credits as credit only courses (CR). These credit courses will apply to their degree without affecting their Cumulative Grade Point Averages (CGPA).
Any unsatisfactory (F or UNS) grades that students receive will be automatically changed to a no record (NR) grade and will not show up in their transcript. To have the course count towards their degree, students will have to retake it and get a passing grade.
“Carleton’s pass-fail policy allows first-year students to take a variety of courses, even ones outside their discipline, to explore different interests without affecting their CGPA,” Jennifer Ramnarine, the president of the Carleton Academic Student Government (CASG) said.
“The first-year grading policy is permanent and is aimed at helping students transition to university in their first year,” Steven Reid, a spokesperson for the university, said in an email to The Charlatan.
Elinor Sloan, clerk of the Senate at Carleton, said this exploratory credit system will help prevent first-year students from dropping out or switching programs.
“There is an unambiguous connection between students receiving D’s and F’s in their first-year courses and then struggling to progress from year to year and ultimately to graduation,” Sloan said in an email.
The policy builds on the Senate’s compassionate grading program implemented for the past two years to help students adjust to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. CASG has been working with associate vice-president David Hornsby on the motion to offer exploratory courses since the beginning of the pandemic.
Ramnarine said survey results conducted by CASG over the last two years show that students of all years support the first-year grading policy and believe the SAT/UNS system should be permanent.
Carleton’s new compassionate measures resemble a policy at the University of Alberta, which is an exploratory credit program that encourages students to try new courses that count for their degree but don’t affect their GPA. Students can take up to four electives during their degree as a credit/non-credit course rather than for a grade.
Jeremy Borg, a first-year journalism student, said the policy will hurt students in the long-term.
“If students can get away with taking courses for credits and not for a letter grade, they will go into future years thinking [their program is] easier and second-year will come as a huge surprise for them,” he said.
Borg said the policy would help first-year students alleviate some pressure of adjusting to university life but thinks university is not supposed to be easy.
“There is a reason you need a certain average to get in and continue in your program,” Borg said.
Ramnarine said discussions are on the table to apply the first-year grading policy to students of all years and to make the SAT/UNS policy permanent.
However, she said nothing has been decided yet because the university needs to see how the policy will affect students before they implement it on a large scale.
“The credit/non-credit policy for first-year students is almost like a test of how a permanent pass-fail grading policy will affect students,” Ramnarine said.
Carleton wants to make the best policy for students to improve their mental health and academic experience, but it also cannot compromise the competitiveness of grades required to get into grad school by giving students unlimited credit courses, according to Ramnarine.
“We think it’s better to do a cautious approach and a slower implementation rather than going ahead all at once,” Ramnarine said.
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
