Some would describe it as an evacuation; others, an eviction. What we do know is that Harvard students will spend the rest of the semester at home. Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, students will face new challenges as they move off-campus and finish the semester online. Abigail Lockhart-Calpito ‘23, who is a first-generation, low-income student, explained in an interview with the HPR that after Harvard suddenly evicted its students, she has to stay with a friend’s family with limited broadband and no place for her to study.
Although she has been facing housing instability and food insecurity since seventh grade, due to the closing of public facilities in response to coronavirus, “going to a public library might not be an option” as it has been in the past. In fact, hundreds of public libraries around the country have been shutting their doors, following the American Library Association Executive Board’s recommendation to close facilities until communities are no longer at risk. Lockhart-Calpito also has to balance a full online course load while supporting her family and paying for her own meals. Without access to university dining services or the kitchen of her own home, she has had to resort to “eating out at whatever places are open,” which will become increasingly challenging as more restaurants close.
Lockhart-Calpito joins several other FGLI, rural, and international students who have found themselves facing challenges that could hinder them from academically performing as they had on campus. These challenges include large time zone differences and inadequate broadband access. In response to these concerns, some universities, including MIT and Smith College, have implemented variations of a Pass/Fail grading system for all their students. However, peer institutions, such as Harvard University, Georgetown University, and Carnegie Mellon University have instituted opt-in Pass/Fail grading. Drawing inspiration from these schools that have already adopted some version of Pass/Fail grading, students from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Miami University, and Michigan State University have started petitions to demand new grading policies. These petitions, which have accumulated thousands of signatures to date, call for policies ranging from allowing Pass/Fail grading options to count towards academic requirements to eliminating letter grades entirely.
While specific changes to grading policies differ between universities, many students are dissatisfied with the lack of changes administrations have made to current grading policies. Students feel as though the grading accommodations their universities have implemented ignore the diversity of home conditions that students face. Moving all classes online was unprecedented, which calls for unprecedented solutions to new academic challenges. Students supporting alternative grading policies have argued that universities should not just stick to the status quo when solving the issues of this crisis. Making this comprehensive change requires universities to open the lines of communication and involve students in every step of developing their policies. Yet, Harvard did not consult students before or after rolling out its first change to grading: extending the pass-fail deadline. For our grading policy to prioritize student well-being and educational equity, Harvard needs to initiate communication with students, not work around them until complaints are received.
#NoFailYale: The Universal Pass System
On Tuesday, March 18th, student leaders from Yale University organized a social media campaign for a Universal Pass policy, urging students to share an infographic with details about the proposed changes. Carlos Brown, one of the organizers of the UP campaign, explained in an interview with the HPR that under a UP system, “every student at Yale College will pass their courses and receive credit towards their major, distributional requirements, and graduation,” meaning “no students will be penalized for factors out of their control.” Students would receive credit for courses in a grade of P on their transcripts with a note explaining the extenuating circumstance. Yale does not currently have a standard Pass/Fail system; rather, the school has a Credit/D/Fail system, so the notation of P on students’ transcripts would be new.
Originally, students intended for the policy to have an opt-in Pass/Fail system similar to Harvard’s most recent change to its grading policy. However, after reading responses from a survey documenting student anecdotes about their current circumstances, the organizers’ idea evolved into what it is currently. Within the first 24 hours, the organizers received around 97 anecdotes;one of them stated, “I have been feeding four people every day since the outbreak, and I’ve been absolutely unable to focus on anything produced day by day. It would be absolutely insane to hold students to standards as if everything was normal when it couldn’t be further from it.” Common themes within these stories included having families whose businesses have been shut down, lack of access to Wi-Fi, and struggling with becoming the primary caregivers of their families.
The UP campaign’s intention is to account for discrimination based on student accessibility to adequate learning facilities. Yale first-year Keith Calloway believes that, under an opt-in Pass-Fail system, “there would not be an equal playing field” as “there is a stigma that exists around choosing Pass/Fail,” especially for students with pressures of getting into graduate school. Lockhart-Calpito, who shared the UP infographic to Harvard undergraduate email lists and Facebook groups, agrees that the policy needs to be applied across the board, comparing it to how “kicking us off-campus was applied to everyone, and it was for the safety of everyone, so [the Universal Pass system] is comparable to that decision” because “it prioritizes everyone.”
#StudentsVoicesMatter: Criticisms of Universal Pass
Despite its benefits for students facing academic challenges, not all students believe the UP System prioritizes everyone. A separate movement at Yale using the #StudentsVoicesMatter has requested the ability to opt-out of UP. In a statement to the deans of Yale College, students argued that “mandating a Universal Pass system fails to give adequate recognition for the hard work that students have put into this semester thus far and puts students who need this set of grades at a tough spot.” The students mentioned include “seniors, who need the final semester to improve their transcripts,” those applying for graduate schools, and students who require a grading system to qualify for scholarships and loans. Although Yale’s UP organizers have responded to some of these concerns in a statement, students opposing them believe the stigma associated with choosing Pass/Fail is not as harmful as the negative effects that would be created by having a UP system for students who may require letter grades for scholarships, graduate schools, internships, and certifications.
Lockhart-Calpito mentioned that after sharing her views on social media, a few classmates reached out with concerns echoing those of the #StudentsVoicesMatter movement at Yale. In response to her post in the Harvard College Class of 2023 Facebook group, Rob Sheko ‘23 commented that he doesn’t “really see how this system is better than opt-in pass/fail,” elaborating that “UP would just make the courses taken this semester and the work put into those classes thus far insignificant” since the guaranteed grade of ‘P’ “effectively doesn’t tell [employers or graduate schools] anything about your academic abilities or performance in those classes.” Sheko suggests that courses instead “adjust their grading more heavily [to] reflect the work students had already done before being told to leave campus.” To reflect differences in prior effort, however, would require at least two different grade options.
The Double A System: A Compromise?
The most recent proposal has been from undergraduates at Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Stanford. They are advocating for a Universal Double A model, under which students would receive either A or A- grades for the spring 2020 semester. The Double A model maintains the educational equity that the UP model aims to protect while acknowledging the concerns of students who require graded courses for scholarship eligibility, ending academic probation, graduate schools, professional certifications, and more. Similar to the UP model, under a Double A policy, all Harvard courses would satisfy distributional, major, and graduation requirements.
When asked about considering a grading model that only issues passing grades (As, Bs, and Cs), Carlos Brown argued that “generally even if you maintain the status quo, you would see declining grades for all students across the board because of the challenging situation, and so by having only passing letter grades, you’re still reinforcing some of that inequality.” Calloway agreed that to allow everyone the same chance of academic success, “the Universal Pass would be the best way to go.” Lockhart-Calpito’s first reaction to the model of passing grades was “pretty positive,” labeling it “a decent compromise,” although she “personally prefers the Universal Pass as of right now.”
Brown and other organizers of the UP system have been contacting graduate schools to allow acceptance of Pass/Fail courses as well as lobbying administration to allow them to count towards requirements. However, the Double A policy’s use of standard letter-grades eliminates the need for these negotiations. The Double A policy’s potential as a compromise lies in its ability to address criticisms of the UP system. The most common criticism of the UP system is that it is not a representation of one’s hard work during the beginning of the semester, but this, too, is addressed in the Double A policy, as students are able to receive the maximum grade for their prior effort.
What to Do Moving Forward?
The debates over grading policy have revealed a clear need for information transparency between all parties which issue, receive, and evaluate grades. While a concrete grading policy still needs to be decided on by Harvard, other graduate schools, companies, and scholarship funds need to release statements disclosing how they will evaluate students based on their grades. As Lockhart-Calpito puts it, “if I’m getting an email from Burger King telling me how they’re changing due to coronavirus, then Harvard Medical School should do the same thing.” Since our interview, Harvard Medical School has released a statement regarding spring 2020 grading for its prerequisite requirements, but other graduate schools have not yet followed in its footsteps.
Students continue to come forward with new ideas on grading policies, showing that deciding a grading system during this crisis is an evolving process. Through all of this strife, students have been the most prominent leaders on changing grading policy, and for good reason. While Harvard’s administration can anticipate the challenges students face during this time, they cannot fully realize how hard some vulnerable students will be hit. With restaurants, coffee shops, libraries, and other safe havens and Wi-Fi spots closing, students face even more inequalities in their education while at home. That is why students are solving the problems we would expect the universities to combat.
But as students take the lead on more equitable grading policies, universities need to open up lines of communication. Harvard has been called a bureaucratic place to navigate in the past, and students now face a virtual barrier to connecting with the decision-makers. To ensure each university’s grading policy is in the best interest of its students, it is essential for lines of communication to be opened between not only students, but also administrators and faculty. Moreover, it should be the duty of administrators at the universities to lead in opening these lines of communication and hear the feedback their students have to give. Lockhart-Calpito emphasizes that “students need to be included in this decision” before expressing, “I’m just a first-year student, but I am a part of the Harvard community.”
Harvard should have taken more student input before deciding an extension to the pass-fail deadline would be adequate in addressing changes to students’ learning environments. Perhaps if they had, students would not have as many concerns about grading now. The numerous petitions should be a sign to administrators that students are more than willing to share their opinions about the changes being made on their behalf. Student organizers should not be the only ones distributing surveys for students to share their opinions and stories. Without the ability to meet with administrators in person, it is imperative that Harvard provide its students with the mechanisms to submit feedback about their virtual semester and, just as importantly, have it listened to.
Image Source: The Harvard Gazette/Rose Lincoln