The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville announced on April 2 that students will be given the option to have their letter grade changed to credit/no credit for the spring semester.
Chancellor Joe Steinmetz wrote a letter to the university that, with the recommendation from the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and student feedback, “students will be assigned a letter grade with the flexibility to request to have their grade changed to a pass, pass with a D, or no credit (NC). Graduate students may apply through their degree programs for a similar system, and law students will move to a pass/fail policy.”
An online petition was made by Presley Hope, a student at the University of Arkansas, on March 15 to change the grading policy to a pass/fail. Hope said, “we believe it is only fair to change our classes to pass/fail and give everybody an equal learning opportunity. Some people thrive in courses online and others greatly struggle without the in-class resources we had before.” More than 9,000 people signed the petition.
Several other schools in Arkansas like the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith have already changed their grading policy for the spring semester to credit/no credit.
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