The NIU Faculty Grievance Procedure now might handle the complaints of an NIU professor concerning administrative grade changes issued to students who illegally registered for spring 1988 classes using a fraudulent “REG” stamp.

The University Professionals of Illinois union earlier this month unanimously recommended to support the filing of a class action lawsuit against NIU in protest to the administrative grade changes. Charles Larson, a communications studies professor who initiated the suit, said an attorney representing the union advised him to proceed through the NIU grievance process.

Larson said the grades of 13 NIU students charged with illegal registration into communications classes were changed by NIU administration.

NIU Associate Provost Lou Jean Moyer said the grade changes came after each student’s case was heard individually through the NIU judicial process. After the illegal registration was discovered, Larson said he attempted to change the grades he issued to marks of “Delete,” which would make it appear that the student had never registered in the class.

Moyer said the administration reinstated the original letter grades based on students’ individual circumstances.

“Any other way (process) would have meant students would arbitrarily lose credit (for the class in which they had illegally registered),” Moyer said.

Larson argues NIU has violated its contract with him as an instructor. “The complaint is that the administration changed my grade,” he said.

Art Doederlein, communications studies undergraduate director, said pursuance of the case through the NIU grievance process is a “step in the right direction.”

“Everyone on campus is going to wait to see (the results of the investigation,” he said. Investigation by the University Council and Faculty Assembly are pending.

According to the 1988 NIU constitutional bylaws, the Faculty Grievance Committee can exercise one of three options once a petition for the committee’s consideration has been filed. The committee can determine if the complaint is “not of sufficient seriousness to warrant consideration, sufficiently clear to be decided on the written records or sufficiently complex to warrant a full hearing.”

UC Executive Secretary Judy Bischoff said faculty concerns about administrative grade changes in cases of illegal registration will be discussed at today’s UC steering committee meeting at 3 p.m. in room 303 of the Holmes Student Center.