Dal student union challenges inconsistent grade scales
Dalhousie’s student union pushes for a uniform grading system in the arts and social sciences department
(0)When profs hand back papers and exams with those intimidating letter grades scrawled in red ink on the front page, students have a general understanding of what that grade means as a percentage. But a recent report from the Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) suggests that in some departments there are unregulated standards in the translation from a number to a letter grade.
Dalhousie’s official grading system is in letter grades. Yet an A+ in one department might mean something very different in another. And when students are depending on the letter grade as the foundation to their grade point average, suddenly a uniform grading system seems to be quite reasonable.
Taking action
The DSU is pushing for a uniform grading policy. Mark Coffin, the vice-president of education for the DSU, says it doesn’t seem fair.
“It doesn’t make sense if you’re an arts student, whether it be history or philosophy or English or Spanish. You’re being graded by one grading standard in one elected course and a different grading standard in another course in the same faculty.”
Although there is not a universal format for converting numeric grades to letter grades, there is a universal system for translating letters grades to their corresponding grade point values. Students acknowledge that an A+ will always be a 4.3, yet what makes that A+ is not always so consistent.
A philosophy student at Dalhousie may have a better shot at getting into graduate school than a history student, simply because of the way grades in those two departments are calculated. An A+ in philosophy at Dalhousie includes anything above a 90 per cent, while in history a 95 per cent or better is required.
“If you’re applying to grad school or at any time your grades are going to be used it doesn’t really reflect well on the student,” Coffin says. “It’s just different standards. Even though it’s just a difference of five or 10 points, it can mean the difference between getting into law school or not getting into law school or to graduate from a research program or not.”
Lydia de Guzman, who is taking arts courses at Dalhousie in preparation for applying to law school, agrees.
“Given the importance of one’s GPA should a student choose to continue their studies, such an arbitrary system seems to undermine student efforts … If professors can interpret grades to their liking, then there might as well be a simple pass/fail systems,” she says.
Individual profs can decide what letter grades mean
In some cases, the grading schemes fall under the responsibility of each individual instructor within a department. Tom Vinci, the head of the philosophy department at Dalhousie, says that the grading system he uses is common in the department. However, “There is no department-wide, or university mandated, number-grade to letter-grade conversion scheme,” he says.
“The grading scheme differs from class to class and teacher to teacher,” says John Barnstead, professor of Russian studies at the university.
Coffin says the student union has not done much research of the grading systems in other faculties. The arts faculty is the one they’ve heard the most complaints come from. Although the subject matter in many of the arts faculties is subjective, Coffin says there should be at least the appearance of trying to have a fair standard of grading.
He says the student union will bring the policy to the academic administration at the beginning of February. The DSU will ask the Dalhousie senate to amend the grading practices so each faculty would be required to apply a uniform system for their departments for converting numeric grades to letters.
“I hope that they take our recommendations and it will be resolved. We call upon the university to amend the grading practices and for the policies and principles to reflect the recommendations we made to create a uniform standard across the university.”
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