As emailed by Professor Jordan Morelli to the Dean of Arts and Science, 1 March 2012:
Dear Faculty Board Agenda Committee,
At the Tuesday February 28 meeting of the Queen’s Senate, the Provost pledged to undertake to return to Senate with a proposal of how to remedy some (or all) of the negative impacts that the manner in which the official GPA-based grading system has been implemented is having on our students. The Provost indicated that he would consult extensively with the various Deans in order to report back to Senate with his recommendations in time for the March Senate meeting. Therefore, in order to ensure that the Arts and Science students are given a voice in this I would respectfully request that a significant portion of time (perhaps an hour) at the Faculty Board meeting be set aside for an ‘informal session’. I request an ‘informal session’ so that anyone in attendance can have speaking privileges – the idea is to permit a broad consultation with the Arts and Science students, and not just with the DSCs. My hope would be that the meeting would be very well attended by students and that this would provide them a forum to express their various concerns directly to the Dean so that he is in the best position possible to relay those concerns to the Provost and hopefully resolve them fully. While I recognize that this request might result in some other agenda items being delayed or deferred, I would respectfully submit that as this is quite time sensitive (due to the Provost’s laudable goal of having a proposal within a month) and also of an extremely high level of importance to our students, that this item be given a very high priority at the upcoming Faculty Board meeting.
Thank you for considering this request.
Best regards,
Jordan
Jordan E. Morelli, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Associate Professor
Department of Physics, Engineering Physics & Astronomy
Queen’s University
Real Academic Planning 