Ley’s compassionate grading promise is great but requires a better plan

The Gateway Forum provided Rowan Ley, the sole presidential candidate in the Students’ Union election, a chance to unpack his most ambitious promise: an opt-in pass/fail grading system. 

If implemented, this policy would radically change the experiences of students on campus for the better, even post-COVID-19. The policy, based on similar compassionate grading schemes at other universities, would give students the choice to receive a simple pass/fail grade for a limited number of courses, instead of typical letter grades. Undoubtedly, the policy would go beyond heavily reducing student stress — it would transform the way the University of Alberta views assessment. 

However, Ley must show there’s a plan behind this promise. Thus far, Ley’s answers leave me unsatisfied. 

During his remarks at the forum, Ley outlined how he planned to show the compassionate grading policy could be a “win-win” for everyone involved. Specifically, he said an opt-in pass/fail system would align well with the university administration’s goal of encouraging more interdisciplinary studies at the university. 

“One of the purposes of the new colleges [created through academic restructuring] is to allow for better interdisciplinary collaboration and more interdisciplinary learning,” Ley noted in his remarks. 

Because of this, Ley believes he could get administrators to support the idea from the jump. If this is the case, he claims a proposed opt-in pass/fail system would avoid the challenges seen by other ambitious SU goals, such as addressing online learning challenges.

“That’s going to speed things up a lot,” Ley said. “A lot of the things that have been slow and difficult to address at the university have been so slow and difficult because senior administration had to be dragged on board from the bottom, rather than having some work already being done at the top.” 

Sadly, I sincerely question if this plan will go far enough. As this year’s vice-president (external), Ley should know that the SU has attempted to work with senior administrators in the past before on big goals, to no avail. 

Banning online proctoring is the perfect example — David Draper, the SU’s current vice-president (academic), tried to tell administrators since May about the impacts the software was having on students. Yet, administrators didn’t listen and student representatives only got limited action on this after a contentious General Faculties Council meeting. 

The interdisciplinary angle is a unique way to approach advocacy — however, this would only bring administrators on side if that was a true goal of the university and, sadly, I remained unconvinced it is. The sole project the university has undertaken to show a commitment to interdisciplinary is the U of A Tomorrow initiative. A major competent of this project, academic restructuring, claims to create interdisciplinary by consolidating faculties into new academic bodies and merging departments together. 

Yet, I imagine this plan had more to do with cost savings than interdisciplinary services. The proposed cost savings of academic restructuring was between $30.9 and $40.7 million. Ultimately, we’re in a fiscal crisis and this project was begun primarily to address this, so any interdisciplinary benefits that come out of the program seem secondary to the financial motivations.

Additionally, a compassionate grading scheme is likely to get some form of pushback on campus and Ley should have some plan for this. Returning to the example of banning online proctoring, some professors remain hostile to changing the system and the university still seems hesitant, despite how much students are suffering. In the face of this resistance, Ley would weaken the SU’s current stance on proctoring from a full ban, only pushing for severe restrictions instead. 

When asked why, he said he wanted to avoid taking an “absolutist” position to make it easier for administrators to support. With this in mind, I’m curious to know what Ley would do if his opt-in pass/fail system gets more pushback than he expects. 

Another important aspect of Ley’s proposal that will likely attract resistance is that the grading scheme would stay in place beyond COVID-19. Compassionate grading has been a hot button topic in the pandemic — however, getting support for a pass/fail grading scheme that outlives COVID-19 may be a difficult task. 

Of course, I could be wrong. In fact, I would love to be wrong — compassionate grading would be a welcome addition to our campus. Honestly, I applaud Ley for promising such an ambitious policy and hope he sticks to it. However, Ley should have a plan on how to actually push administration for results on this promise, rather than relying on one selling point that administrators may not buy. 

The university administration may listen to students — however, given the events of the last year, this seems unlikely. An opt-in pass/fail system is brilliant but, to show voters this promise is truly meaningful, Ley needs a better plan in case the university chooses to opt-out on his vision.