Provost Office: Memorandum
To: All Faculty, Staff, and Students
From: Stephen W. Director, Provost
Subject: Drexel to Implement Plus/Minus Grading System
Date: 1 June 2006
Drexel will implement plus/minus grading across the University effective fall 2006. This change, originally proposed by the Faculty Senate Committee for Faculty Affairs and approved by the Faculty Senate, will help students better understand their academic progress throughout their Drexel career and allow faculty members to more accurately assess student performance.
Plus/minus grading also keeps Drexel in step with peer institutions, as well as a majority of colleges and universities throughout the nation.
The decision to accept the Senate's recommendation was made after consulting with the academic deans and directors and their faculties, analyzing the experiences at other institutions that have adopted the plus/minus system and carefully considering student opinion. Through surveys and a well-attended Student Forum with Dr. Michael Dreher of the Faculty Senate and Dr. N. John DiNardo of the Office of the Provost, students had an opportunity to debate the merits of the new system. The concerns that were raised centered largely on the possibility of artificial GPA deflation.
However, institutions implementing plus/minus systems in recent years have seen minimal changes in GPA.
The Office of the Provost will assess the impact of the new system, including average term and overall GPAs and distributions for each academic program and in the aggregate, to ensure that the goal of finer assessment is met without adversely affecting student GPAs. Any statistically significant reductions in average GPAs will be taken into account when determining renewal of merit scholarships. Further, a notation will be made on student transcripts of the effective date of the change in grading scale.
The plus/minus grading scale will be as follows:
A+ 4.00
A 4.00
A- 3.67
B+ 3.33
B 3.00
B- 2.67
C+ 2.33
C 2.00
C- 1.67
D+ 1.33
D 1.00
F 0.00