Soon Barnard students will be able to uncover their P/D/F grades like these guys uncover ancient civilizations

SGA met again last night in Diana 502 to tirelessly continue their work of student governing. SGA n00b Maud Rozee keenly watched.

After passing around a luscious cheese and fruit platter, SGA covered some news about upcoming events:

• The Student Curatorial Committee and the Committee on Diversity are hosting their second story-sharing event, centered on the theme “Growing Pains”, this Thursday from 7: 30 – 9 in the Altschul Atrium.
•  The Committee on Diversity is going to show some potential first generation college students from Manhattan around Barnard this week.
• There will be a Townhall on April 22nd for McAC, the new Governing Board at Barnard, club leaders and all interested parties to discuss how SGA’s restructure will affect bylaws and certain processes.
• Student Wellness Project is going to have a week of “random acts of kindness” from April 15th -19th .

Next was a presentation from the Student Academic Advisory Committee about a proposal to allow Barnard students to uncover grades from classes which they have chosen to P/D/F. Apparently, 92.5% of respondents to the SAAC’s online survey said that they were in favor of the change and many  spoke strongly and profanely about their desire to have the same P/D/F policy as the Columbia students who share their classrooms. The new policy would allow students to uncover a grade in the first two weeks of the semester directly following the P/D/F’ed class.

According to the SAAC’s presentation, this change to the P/D/F policy would help align Barnard’s academic policies more closely with Columbia’s – a consideration that helped bring about the recent changes to the Dean’s List policy. It would also foster a culture of wellness by allowing students to take classes out of their comfort zones without worrying about the effect on their GPA. Allowing students to uncover their grades would also encourage them to not completely slack off on classes that they had P/D/F’ed.

After a relatively fiery debate about to what extent the administration’s misgivings about uncovering P/D/F grades should be considered (one member suggested that they “be gracious in the way that we suggest this”, another countered “we’re not just going to slip this under their door and walk away”), SGA approved the proposal. Now they’ll wait for Provost Linda Bell and Registrar Constance Brown to respond.

The meeting closed with a reminder that Deborah Spar will be at next week’s meeting. That’s sure to be thrilling, so make sure to look out for next week’s write-up!

Archeologists via Wikimedia