University to end covered grades in fall 2017
Reporting about the SGA, not a record of it: The Johns Hopkins News-Letter published this and the SGA did not write it, file it, or approve it. The archive holds it because the article itself uses the phrases “sga” and “student government”.
Summary
- This Johns Hopkins News-Letter article reports on the planned end of the University’s covered-grades policy and the response to it.
- The News-Letter reported that the University will end covered grades in fall 2017; next year’s freshmen will still have them, but the Class of 2021 will not, and current students’ grades will remain covered.
- The paper reported that Deans Beverly J. Wendland and Ed Schlesinger said faculty members viewed the policy as delaying study skills and harming students who performed well, and wrote that Johns Hopkins was nearly alone among peer institutions in using it.
- The article adds that Wendland and Schlesinger cited PILOT, the Writing Center, MAPP, smaller classes and expanded orientation as other support for freshmen’s transition to college.
- The reporter writes that SGA Executive President Charlie Green objected to the lack of student input and wrote, “we fundamentally oppose any decision-making process that excludes student input.”
- According to the article, the review began in 2008, the Academic Council voted in 2011 to repeal the policy starting in 2014, and final approval was recently granted with no appeal allowed.