Faculty members are considering adding pluses and minuses to transcript grades, potentially affecting grade point averages.

Members of the Faculty Senate's Curricular Affairs Committee are reviewing the proposal. A vote could come by May.

Paul Layer, president of the senate, said he put forward the new grading policy so students' class marks are reflected more accurately on transcripts. Homework and tests are usually graded on a 100-point system, and a percent system does not convert well to a four-point GPA scale, he said.

"I get kind of frustrated with what I can do with grading," Layer said.

Up until 1993, UAF transcripts carried pluses and minuses but only as advisory grades with no affect on GPA's, Layer said.

They were more or less to signal who was a "bad boy or bad girl," Layer said.

Committee members recently conducted a study to determine how adding pluses and minuses would affect GPA's. Utilizing UAF transcript data from 1990 to 1993, the committee found the average grade for a given course would drop by 0.02 points.

Such a change would be insignificant, faculty committee members concluded.

Rainer Newberry, chair of the Curricular Affairs Committee and a geology and geophysics professor, says he wants a university-wide discussion of the issue, and said the change would add fine-tuning to reflect student achievement more accurately.

Pluses and minuses wouldn't hurt students, he said. Rather, they would provide students with more information about how they are doing in subjects. They could even send a signal to some students about whether subject areas are truly right for them, he said.

"To a certain extent, grades are sort of bullshit," Newberry said. "If it's kind of bullshitty, you can eliminate it all together, which isn't going to happen, or you can make it more accurate."

Some critics have voiced concern that students averaging a C-minus, or a 1.7, would lose their financial aid eligibility despite still being in good standing. Rainier called that a red herring, noting the study his committee conducted showed no real change in GPA over time.

Layer published a Sun Star opinion editorial about the grading proposal in September, and he presented the idea to ASUAF at an October meeting. The limited student response has so far been supportive, and departments seem to favor it, he said.

Joe Blanchard, president of ASUAF, said the student government fought a similar proposal in the mid-1990s. The times have not changed much since then, he said.

"I haven't heard that many students who ever said ‘I want the system more strict,'" Blanchard said.

Jack Bohannon, a sophomore computer engineering major, said professors might be less likely to bump students up a full letter grade if they had the option of giving students pluses and minuses.

"Think about the people trying to get into graduate school and need a 3.0," Bohannon said.

Kelsey Alexander, a senior interdisciplinary studies major, said it probably wouldn't matter.

"It'd lower my GPA, I know that much, but mine is fairly high, so I guess I can take a hit," she said.

Forums will be held later this semester to seek student and faculty input on the new grading system.