“Pass/Fail” is no more, but so is academic suspension/dismissal

A bird's eye view of a person crossed-legged on a bed with a laptop in front of them and books scattered around.
Students will receive grades regularly this year, but won’t be kicked out for low grades. Photo by Windows on Unsplash.
Meg Cunningham - CHMA - SackvilleNB | 22-03-2021
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Mount Allison will not be offering the pass/fail option to students this semester, and is instead forgoing academic suspension and dismissal due to low GPA this year.

So that means that all students will have a grade point average recorded on their university transcript, but no student will be barred from returning to class this fall if their grades are low.

Normally, any student who has a GPA of 1.0 or less is placed on automatic Academic Suspension, which means they aren’t allowed to take any more Mount Allison courses for one full year.

The student would then have to apply to be readmitted to the university, and put on Academic Probation. A second suspension will result in their dismissal from Mount Allison, which means they can’t return to the university for three years.

This year, while students will have a low grade recorded on their transcripts, they will still be allowed to return to school next year regardless of the grade.

Mount Allison Students Union Vice President (and elected president of the 2021-2022 term), Charlie Burke says that while pass/fail was helpful for some students it wasn’t helping the ones who were struggling the most.

“When we put forward pass fail last semester, there was never a guarantee that we’d be able to do that again this semester,” says Burke. “It was pretty clear that the University Senate felt that the the pass/fail motion didn’t support the students who were struggling the most, students who were failing.”

Knowing that they couldn’t push for pass/fail this semester, the MASU worked on another motion to keep students with low grades from “slipping through.”

According to Provost and Vice-President, Academic and Research Jeff Hennessy, “the results from the Fall term showed that student grades were actually higher than previous Fall terms.”

He says that since professors modified their courses due to the circumstances, that may have helped students’ grades.

Hennessy also says that “very few of the scholarship-eligible GPA category used these alternative grades in the Fall,” and that “the decision on a motion from the MASU was to focus on students who may be in danger of academic sanction due to grades and to suspend enforcement of unsatisfactory standing this year.”

Burke admits that while the temporary removal of the academic suspension and dismissal protocol is good news for students who are struggling to keep their grades up, she understands why students may be upset that they can’t request the “pass/fail” grading system.

She says that there are larger conversations about grading in progress that stand to benefit the student body.

“We’re talking about grading schemes, what is the difference between qualitative and quantitative grading, and how much of an emphasis should [be put] on grades in general, and shifting some of those ideologies,” Burke explains. “We’ve been talking about shifting the evaluation off of grades, and continuing to have those conversations about how much weight our GPAs be given in the long run.”

“To those students who are upset about it, please reach out to the academic support services because there’s still time. We totally hear you, we totally get it.”

Students can direct questions around changes to academic assessment to assocregistrar@mta.ca.

Specific questions about scholarships can be e-mailed the Financial Aid and Awards Counsellor: financialaid@mta.ca.

Students struggling with mental health or wellness can contract wellness@mta.ca.

Students requiring accessibility aid can contact the Meighen Centre at accessibility@mta.ca.

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