Spring 2020 Grading Options

Dear Students,

Together we have faced cumulative and compounding health, economic, racial injustice and social challenges this quarter. The Academic Senate understands the stress this has placed on students, and has worked to help insure that your current educational goals and your ability to make future academic progress are not negatively impacted by these challenges. We too, your faculty, are saddened and distressed by recent events and want you to know that we are here for you, working to preserve your educational opportunity.

After hearing student concerns with remote instruction in the context of our current social situation, the Academic Senate approved a new one-time exception for this quarter to permit you to change your grading option and select a Pass/No Pass (undergraduate students) or Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (graduate students) grade up until the end of the last day of finals week, June 12, 2020. Unfortunately, there is too much variation in individual student circumstances for the Educational Policy Committee and the Senate Council to support approving any blanket exceptions that would require all undergraduate and graduate courses to be offered on a P/NP or S/U basis in Spring 2020. Many students would be negatively impacted. However, we hope that extending the P/NP and S/U deadlines will provide each student additional time to make important decisions.

We strongly recommend that you discuss your individual situation with your Dean of Academic Advising and financial aid advisor so you can be fully informed of your options and potential consequences before making end of quarter decisions.

The Academic Senate has provided your instructors with guidance on policy and the acceptable limits of flexibility for final exams. Please be respectful of your instructors and the options that they chose for the final.

These are unprecedented times, and you are to be commended for quickly adapting and continuing your studies through a global pandemic and the painful events of last week. We need you, as future University of California graduates, to complete your education and be equipped to make the important contributions to healthcare, social justice, and the many other fields that California and our nation needs in order to create the society that we desire but have not yet achieved.

Stay well,

Maripat Corr
Chair,
San Diego Divisional Academic Senate

Stephen Constable
Vice Chair,
San Diego Divisional Academic Senate

Geoffrey Cook
Chair, Educational Policy Committee
San Diego Divisional Academic Senate

Anthony Burr
Chair, Undergraduate Council,
San Diego Divisional Academic Senate

Lynn Russell
Chair, Graduate Council,
San Diego Divisional Academic Senate

Michael Trigilio
Chair, Committee on Diversity and Equity,
San Diego Divisional Academic Senate