A new grade appeals policy is expected to take affect within the next couple of weeks.

The Council on Academic Affairs and the Council on Graduate Studies held a joint forum Thursday to discuss a revised proposal to replace the current Internal Governing Policy 45.

The Grade Appeals Ad Hoc Committee presented a policy with revisions as suggested by the campus community last fall.

“We appreciated all the input that we got,” said Christie Roszkowski, chair of CAA and member of the ad hoc committee. “We started off with what represented the most concerns and from there, we looked at every single (comment) and worked from there.”

Some original concerns had to do with the title of the policy, the process of appealing grades and the parties and administrators involved.

“No one, as far as I could tell, liked the term ‘capricious grading,'” Roszkowski said, which was the title of the original proposed policy. The current title proposal is “Grade Appeal Policy.”

Other changes had to do with the length and complexity of the policy and the process.

Instead of using both the College Grade Appeals Committee and University Grade Appeals Committee as originally suggested, the revision only includes the college committee. The duties of the university committee have been absorbed by the deans of the respective colleges.

“We did try to make it a little shorter process,” Roszkowski said. “I think it’s a much more manageable and readable document now.”

As the proposal stands right now, a student must file an official grade appeal with the chair of the department by the midterm of the following semester. The student must also speak with the professor who assigned the grade in an effort to resolve the problem, before filing the appeal.

“Our goal is to ensure that the student talks to the faculty member first,” Roszkowski said.

The next step would be for the student, faculty member and chair of the department to meet and try to resolve the issue. If the issue is not resolved it moves on to the College Grade Appeal Committee.

“If the student feels the issue is not resolved, they have the right to appeal to the College Committee,” said Robert Augustine, Dean of the Graduate School and member of the ad hoc committee.

The college committees will be composed of faculty from the colleges and a student member. There will be a different committee for the College of Arts and Humanities, College of Sciences, College of Professional and Educational Studies and the Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences.

“The charge of the committee is to gather the facts and then to move forward in the best interest of the parties involved,” said Kathleen O’Rourke, chair of the CGS.

The committees reserve the right to change the grade or to keep it the same.

Following the committee’s decision, the student has the right to appeal to the dean of the college on the grounds of a procedural error. If the dean finds there is a procedural error, the grade appeals process will be repeated. If there is no error, then the decision made by the committee is enforced.

These proposals would change the current process which sends grade appeals to be heard by a departmental grade committee. Also, currently the committee cannot change a grade, but only make a recommendation to the faculty member.

“As a committee, we felt the pros of moving it out of the department outweighed the cons,” Roszkowski said.

Following the presentation of the proposal there was a discussion with a few suggested changes. Roszkowski and O’Rourke plan to work together on these changes so that both CAA and CGS will be able to vote on the proposal in coming weeks.

“It’s probably going to be the week after spring break,” Roszkowski said.

She said there were less questions and concerns about the proposed changes at yesterday’s forum than there were in the fall.

“I think it was an indication of how well we (the committee) did our job.”