By Dayzsha Lino, Co-News Editor
As professors and students continue to adjust to the new non-normal of alternative instruction, one graduating senior is trying to build support for something that might feel the most abnormal for some of us students: getting straight A’s across the board this semester
Emmanuel Okosisi, a chemistry major, started a Change.org petition on March 18 calling for the university to award A’s to students enrolled in any class this semester, as the abrupt decision to move into online instruction due to the coronavirus pandemic is too stressful for students unfamiliar with distance learning.
“During normal times, we would have been able to get through our classes,” Okosisi states in the petition. “However, these are not normal times, and taking classes online places a huge burden on students who are not familiar with the online class environment and can lead to failure as previously mentioned. California State University, Dominguez Hills is not a 100 percent online school, and this is not what we signed up for when we paid our tuition and selected our classes.”
Okosisi says that if the administration isn’t willing to give all students an A, then they can change the grading scale from A-F to A-C. When asked about his stance on a credit/no credit system, Okosisi said he disagrees with that approach because it wouldn’t be beneficial for students who need a boost in their G.P.A.
“People who want to go to med-school, who want to be lawyers, those who are going to graduate school, they definitely need a boost in their G.P.A.,” Okosisi said, “So If you make it pass or fail, it will not count towards the G.P.A., and it will mess up their plans. But if you make it grade-related, that means they can get the highest grade possible to boost their G.P.A.s for their future careers.”
The CSUDH Academic Senate, along with the rest of the CSU system, have sent out a survey asking faculty members what they think would be the best grading method as of now during the COVID-19 crisis. The options are to either stick with the normal letter grade system or to opt out of that and convert to a credit/no credit grading system.
In part of the description for the survey, it states that a credit/no credit system may have a huge impact of those receiving financial aid, specifically in determination of their progress through Satisfactory Student Progress (SAP) and “Pace of Completion” (Pace) which are both used to measure a students G.P.A. and number of credits throughout their academic career.
While the petition has been signed by over 5,000 students so far, some students think that a credit/no credit system would be the better option. A group called CSUDH Students commented on the petition’s page that “A more realistic solution is a Pass/Fail grading for the Spring 2020 semester.”
Whoever was in charge of the profile included a link at the end of the comment to a petition they started calling for the school to enact a temporary pass/fail system for the time being during the coronavirus outbreak.
Despite the naysayers, Okosisi is still trying to convince the Office of the Presidents to consider his position and pass everyone with an A. When he emailed the Office of the Presidents on March 18 and 21, he was told that they would be considering the possibilities. So far, there have been no other reports of anyone from the Office of the Presidents stating a position on this matter.
Link to the petition can be found here:
https://www.change.org/p/petition-to-pass-all-csudh-students-for-spring-2020-with-an-a-letter-grade
