The number of students listed on this year’s UW President’s Honor Roll was at a five-year low, according to a university press release from June 2.
The UW President’s Honor Roll is awarded to all regularly enrolled undergraduates who earned a 4.0 grade point average for the semester. According to the UW website, 754 students were listed on the Fall 2014 President’s Honor Roll. Those numbers then dropped to 704 students for the Spring 2015 list. Prior to the release of these numbers, the shortest President’s Honor Roll in the past five years featured 855 students and followed the Spring 2012 semester.
The decrease in the number of students on the UW President’s List occurred in tandem with the induction of the new university plus/minus grading system.
In classes that abide by the plus/minus grading system, any grade between a 3.667 and a 3.334 will be classified as an A-. If a student ends a semester with even one class at an A- or below, they will no longer be eligible for the President’s Honor Roll. UW’s Dean of Students Sean Blackburn said it is possible the new grading system is the reason for the decline in the number of students on the president’s list.
“It gives more specific feedback to the student,” Blackburn said. “90-100, for a lot of students, was an A. Now, it’s a wider target to hit, right? Now there’s the different levels, and so it’s a little bit more specific feedback–the breakdown of those points is a little bit different. It’s sort of possible that [plus/minus grading] has made it more rigorous to get on the President’s List.”
Tucker Readdy, the UW Faculty Senate chair, said the plus/minus system is ultimately beneficial to students.
“Often times, faculty will feel that, if you do switch to a plus/minus grading system, it just allows for a more precise assessment of student learning,” Readdy said. “So, in that respect, many people do believe that there is probably a difference in content mastery between someone who scores 89 percent and someone who scores 81 percent. To have that be the same on their transcripts is a little bit problematic. It essentially washes out the difference in their learning.”
Since the plus/minus implementation, the Faculty Senate has not yet looked into how the grading system affects student GPAs across campus, Readdy said.
“That wasn’t at the top of our agenda,” he said.
Readdy also said the decrease in the number of students on the UW President’s Honor Roll can be attributed to the introduction of plus/minus grading.
“The easy answer would be for me to say now there are students who received an A-, and they’re no longer 4.0, and under the previous system it would have been an A,” Readdy said. “So, is that contributing, sure. I imagine it is.”
