SGA votes against new GPA policy

At a special meeting last night, the SGA swiftly passed a resolution condemning the university's proposed plan for implementing a plus-and-minus grading system — a measure the University Senate will consider tomorrow.

Student Government Association President Kaiyi Xie said he called the special session to give legislators the opportunity to find common ground on the issue, which drew contentious debate at the body's last meeting Nov. 2.

"I think the SGA legislature deserves the chance to voice their concerns and collaborate," Xie said in an interview before the meeting.

After legislators debated for more than an hour last week, they narrowly passed a resoultion in a 17 to 12 vote backing the senate's proposal to implement a new grading system — provided it only applied to next year's incoming freshmen and transfer students. But Xie quickly vetoed the bill on the grounds that it was "blatantly unfair."

With the senate's vote pending, Xie said he wanted to give the body an opportunity to decide how it will represent students Wednesday.

In contrast to last week's long-winded meeting, last night's session lasted less than half an hour and the legislature voted overwhelmingly in favor of the new resolution against the senate's proposal in a 20 to 2 vote with one abstention. The body will present its stance to senate members at their full body meeting and call for the senate's academic procedures and standards committee to reconsider the proposal.

"The SGA makes a strong statement by this bill," said business legislator Ira Rickman, who sponsored the SGA bill opposing the senate proposal. "I think the senate should listen."

During their past two meetings, SGA legislators voiced concern regarding the senate's policy that would apply the new grading system — in which A plus and A grades would be worth a 4.0 while A minus grades would receive 3.7 points — to all students at this university next fall, as well as next year's incoming class.

SGA members added that senators did not seek alternatives and failed to solicit enough input from the student body before deciding how to apply the policy.

"This is a major change," Rickman said. "For the provost's implementation plan to say that no alternative approach was consulted and that they'll just do what everyone else is doing is, to me, very troubling."

And while Robert Buchanan, the chair of the senate's APAS committee, said last week that student committee members were on board with the current plan, Rickman said that did not match up with the opinions of 523 students SGA legislators polled last week — 69.41 percent of respondents said they were against the policy.

"I feel as though when we reached out to students and talked to students, they were overwhelmingly against this," Rickman said. "Their stance seems to differ from what the figures say."

Other SGA legislators said they also felt ill-informed by the senate.

"I think too often the senate informs us of important bills by email or in our inboxes after the fact," Speaker Pro Tempor Andrea Marcin said.

Ultimately, the SGA decided the senate's proposal was insufficient, and Xie said he was glad the legislature reached agreement last night through this stance.

"I think the student voices were ultimately heard," Xie said. "It lets the senate know our concerns and it was a positive step from the debate at the last meeting."

Because vetoes are only meant to be used in extreme circumstances, SGA Communications Director Staci Armezzani said most SGA presidents average one veto per year. Xie's predecessor, Steve Glickman, only vetoed one bill during his two terms as president, and the president before him, Jonathan Sachs, vetoed a bill at the last meeting before the new administration assumed control of the office, Armezzani said.

Xie felt last week's proposed SGA resolution warranted a veto because it was unfair to future students, he said. If the senate complied with the SGA's suggestions, incoming students and upperclassmen in the same class would receive different GPAs for the same grade.