The Faculty Senate agreed that the University should pursue a policy of grade forgiveness at its meeting Feb. 7.

Because it involves grades, all USC campuses must agree to adopt a grade forgiveness policy, which has been drafted and discussed, but not finalized. Before it can become official, the policy must be ratified by all the campuses and included in the USC Bulletin. The general parameters of the new policy would include the following:

• undergraduate students could retake once up to two different courses in which a grade of F or D was received
• both grades would stay on the student's transcript, but only the second grade would be used for calculating a student's overall grade point average.

"At this point, there is no written policy document," said Christine Whitaker, medicine, chair of the Committee on Scholastic Standards and Petitions, who proposed the motion. "I'm asking you to agree that the policy is the right thing to do. It will give incoming freshmen and sophomores adjusting to college and university life a little bit of a break."

"It's almost a leap of faith," said Gene Reeder, pharmacy, chair of the Faculty Senate. "We're asking the Senate to give us the authority to go forward to the provost's office and to meet with the chancellors and Faculty Senate representatives at the other campuses to synthesize what is a reasonable policy of grade forgiveness across the University."

After many questions and a lengthy discussion concerning the details of any final written policy, a majority of the Senators approved the motion.

During his comments, Provost Becker updated the University's three dean searches. Three candidates have interviewed for dean of the Columbia campus of the S.C. College of Pharmacy. With applications being received, searches for dean of the Graduate School and dean the Moore School of Business are on schedule, Becker said.

Jim Augustine, the University's ombudsman, discussed the role of his office as "an independent, neutral, confidential, and informal resource for faculty concerns and conflicts."

To contact Augustine, call 733-3377, e-mail ombuds@sc.edu, or go to www.sc.edu/ombuds.

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