A plus/minus grading system which has faced opposition from some students may be vetoed at a University Council (UC) meeting today.

After nearly two years of discussion and debate, the Undergraduate Coordinating Council (UCC) submitted their meeting minutes to the UC. The minutes include their approval of changes to the grading system as proposed by the Admissions Polices and Academic Standards Committee (APASC). Those changes include adding pluses and minuses to the current grading system, with the exception of A+ and C-. No pluses and minuses for Ds and Fs are included.

The UCC is entitled to make policies on academic issues, said Faculty Senate President Alan Rosenbaum. As a safeguard, the UC can veto policies. Rosenbaum said assuming UC doesn’t take exception to the plus/minus grading system, it will become policy, though the UC could decide to vote it down within six weeks.

Student Association (SA) Senator Mike Theodore said most of the students he’s talked to are not in favor of the plus/minus grading system. Students may be concerned with how this grading system will affect their GPA, he said.

“I think the issue right now is whether or not this is a good policy,” Theodore said.

Rosenbaum said plus/minus grades have been proposed on and off since 2005. At a Feb. 9, 2011, Faculty Senate meeting, the senate voted to recommend changes to the grading system. The proposal moved to the UCC, the Graduate Council and APASC.

Rosenbaum said he asked Faculty Senate members to poll their departments to find if the faculty as a whole supported the plus/minus grading system, and the results showed all but three departments supported it.

APASC debated the plus/minus grading system and decided on a plus/minus grading system with no A+ or C- at an April 18 meeting. Rosenbaum said Faculty Senate didn’t contest the changes proposed by APASC.

Rosenbaum said students had input on the plus/minus grading through student representatives in UCC and student leaders. The SA conducted a referendum to gather student input on the system during the spring 2011 semester. The referendum’s resulted showed 217 students were in favor of the system, 707 were not and 140 were unsure.

SA Senate Speaker Austin Quick said the new plus/minus grading system would hinder the average student.

“Our school has not increased the level and quality of faculty here, so why are we going to increase the level of standards on the students when nothing has changed?” Quick said.

Kyle Bak, SA director of Academic Affairs, said he was on APASC but he was not on the committee when they approved their changes to the plus/minus grading system. Bak said he recently gathered petitions from Alpha Phi Omega, Phi Sigma Kappa, Sigma Kappa and Alpha Sigma Alpha on the grading system. He found 221 students were against the system while 14 were in favor of it.

UC will meet at 3 p.m. today in the Holmes Student Center’s Sky Room.