Plus/minus grading will soon go into effect at NIU.

The option to veto the plus/minus grading policy was brought up again at a University Council (UC) meeting Wednesday. The UC decided during an Oct. 10 meeting to send the policy to the Undergraduate Coordinating Council (UCC) committee for more adequate student input.

The UCC determined students had sufficient opportunity for input and sent the policy to UC for it to take effect unless there was a two-thirds veto from the council.

The policy will now go into effect for the fall 2013 semester. Grades will soon have pluses and minuses with the exception of A+, C-, D’s and F’s.

Student Association (SA) members were present at the meeting to encourage the UC to veto the grading policy. They not only felt student feedback on the policy was still inadequate, but that the policy would hurt students’ grades.

“The SA continues to stand firm in its position that a policy that does affect students should involve students,” said SA Senator Mike Theodore.

Mary Beth Henning, assistant professor of literacy education, spoke in favor of the SA members. She said she believed this policy would not help students and it was not in their best interest. She urged fellow UC members to veto the policy.

Faculty Senate President Alan Rosenbaum recommended the policy not be vetoed. He said data that showed the plus/minus grading policy as putting students at a disadvantage was lacking. The university committees that looked into the policy were not able to find any disadvantages, he said. Rosenbaum said the policy is the dominant system in universities throughout the U.S.

“I would argue that to veto this would be to disregard not only the advice of the Faculty Senate and the faculty at large, but also a group of UCC members and APASC [Admissions Policies and Academic Standards Committee] members who have been laboring at this for about two and half years,” Rosenbaum said.

At the beginning of the meeting, NIU President John Peters announced the Board of Trustees (BOT) began the process of selecting the next university president, as he will step down.

Jerry Blakemore, vice president and general counsel, who is helping with the search committee, said the BOT will meet in a special session on Thursday to select an executive search firm to assist the search committee and the BOT.

Blakemore said four different national search firms have already been vetted, and the BOT would like to have the next president selected by July 1.