The Committee on Curricular Policy (CCP) recently passed a proposal to the faculty that would allow students to retake a course in which they received a grade of D or D+. Members of the faculty will discuss the policy at their next meeting, and if the policy passes on the faculty floor, the proposal will become part of the academic policy of the College. The Editorial Board of The Miscellany News supports this proposal and encourages faculty members to approve it.
The College already has a policy in place that allows students who receive an F in a course to retake it, but a D grade often presents a student with challenges similar to those he or she would face after receiving an F. A grade of a D or D+, like an F, often does not count towards the fulfillment of graduate school requirements. This disparity puts a students who receives a D or D+ in an unusual predicament: They have not technically failed and therefore cannot take the class again, but the students have also not performed well enough for the grade to pass muster for admission to many graduate programs. In some cases, the course may be a prerequisite to move on in a major or may be a very particular requirement for a professional field, such as medicine. Thus a D could throw a student off of his or her preferred track. If a student worries that he or she may receive a D in a class, there is then an incentive for that student to fail the class, since he or she will then be able to retake the course. We feel that this situation is unreasonable; students should not be punished more for receiving a D grade than for receiving an F.
This proposal also provides an important benefit for first year and transfer students. The ease of a student's transition into college life depends greatly on his or her high school preparation. This policy recognizes that Vassar students come from a variety of backgrounds, a variety which includes diversity in academic preparation. The proposal alleviates some of the pressure on these students by providing them with the opportunity to retake a class in which they may have struggled. Even if the student's grades improve dramatically after the first year, the D grade acquired early on represents a hurdle in graduate admissions. We feel that without the policy, a difficult class taken in a student's freshman year could unreasonably restrict his or her future professional prospects.
While some might worry that students will take advantage of this policy by purposely failing a class in order to be able to retake it, we think that this sort of abuse will rarely occur. Moreover, we believe the benefits of this policy substantially outweigh this potential risk. As the proposal is now written, both the original grade and the grade after retaking a course will appear on a student's transcript, and students will only be able to retake a class once.
We feel that these stipulations will deter students from misusing the policy. According to Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette, under the current policy approximately only 70 of the 500 students who receive an F grade in a course each year elect to retake it. This figure suggests that a relatively small percentage of those students who receive D grades will choose to retake the course in which they receive the D. Those students who do decide to retake a course are most likely committed to the field in which the class was offered. We applaud the diligence of the students who decide to retake a class in which they previously struggled and believe that this commitment to academic success should be encouraged.
Currently, none of our peer institutions have a similar policy in place. We do not see this as a deterrent, but rather as a crucial opportunity for Vassar to set an example for the College's peers. We at the Miscellany believe that our peer institutions should follow suit in creating academic policies that reflect the difficulties of the first-year experience.
Furthermore, we believe that retaking any course takes a considerable amount of dedication that should be applauded by every academic institution.
It is necessary to extend Vassar's current policy of allowing students to retake the class in which they received an F grade to those who receive a D grade. We applaud CCP for approving the new policy, and we sincerely urge the members of the faculty to do so as well.
—The Staff Editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 21-member Editorial Board.
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