The deadline to change courses from a letter grade to pass/no pass is tomorrow, even though many students and the USG senate petitioned the administration to push back the deadline. The administration still said no.
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Earlier this semester, President Folt announced that the university would expand the number of classes eligible for pass/no pass and extend the deadline to the last day of classes. A lot of students had issues with this decision.
I immediately wanted to hop on this initiative to see whether it was possible to advocate for it to be after final grades were posted like it was in the spring semester, given all the circumstances that students are facing.
That’s USG Chair of Committee on Academic Affairs Katelyn Lee. She’s been advocating to extend the deadline since mid-October.
I compiled a lot of research and also received a lot of testimonies, in my USG email from students discussing all the circumstances that they’re facing and the reasons why they felt that this deadline change was necessary. USG has had several conversations with the administration, as have I, talking about possible changes to pass no pass, including the deadline change.
Earlier this week, USG took to social media to spread awareness for the petition. USG Senator Alexis Areias worked under Lee to advocate for students.
The deadline was fast approaching and we kind of had to evaluate our options. Can we pass a resolution in support of this movement? And because it was coming up so quickly, we decided, no, we’re not going to have enough time to really make the impact that we want to make. And so the statement ended up being the best way to do that. We could post it on social media. Students would be able to share it. And luckily for us, it really did work. We had, I think, well over a thousand signatures in that first day alone just from posting that statement.
As of now, the petition has nearly 6,000 signatures. Lee has been collecting stories from students about what the deadline extension would mean to them.
We all know that every single individual is struggling. But to really hear those personal stories was very difficult A lot of classes you don’t know a majority of your grade, oftentimes close to 60 to 70 percent of your grade is just really hard to make an informed decision about what your grade option should be. And a lot of students also expressed the difficulties they faced due to housing insecurity, Wi-Fi access, Irvine fires, and then also the fact that it’s an online semester that’s also shortened with no breaks. And there’s a lack of mental health resources and a lack of accommodations and flexibility from instructors.
Lee was disappointed to hear the administration’s decision against extending the deadline. Last semester, students were allowed to change their courses to pass/no pass well after finals ended.
They felt that last semester it was a little more necessary because it was a disruption to our learning with the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning. But there’s this idea that students have already adjusted and that they want to ensure the integrity of our grading system at USC. It just fails to account for the fact that a lot of students are struggling and instructors haven’t always been very accommodating.
Areias and Lee say that petitions are a great way to get the attention of the administration and that the first deadline extension was because of a student petition. And they’re inspired by student activism.
I don’t think it’s the responsibility of students have to ask administration for this. But I am really thankful to see how much students have mobilized support. And it’s really made my job easier to try to demonstrate to administration how important this is.
It’s unlikely that the administration will change their mind on the deadline extension for next semester, but USG is planning on advocating for an increase to the 24 unit cap on pass/no pass classes.
We are absolutely very committed to the twenty-four unit cap that we have right now. That’s something that I know a lot of students are having issues with right now. As it is. And given that this will be our third semester on the pass no pass system, USG will absolutely be advocating for an increase to that to that cap in units.
Good luck with finals, everyone.