By Dan Henson
Reporter
The Student Senate got into a heated debate during their weekly meeting Thursday evening over a bill that would change Baylor’s grading scale.
Senior Academic Affairs Chair Cody Orr sparked a debate when he discussed the bill he had authored, which proposed the adoption of a plus and minus grading scale. Orr admitted that he wrote the bill reluctantly.
“I view this bill like taking medicine,” Orr said. Orr insisted that Baylor’s current grading scale is unique among those used by schools of Baylor’s caliber in its grade inflation.
The current grading scale is strictly a plus system.
“None of them do what we do, and that’s a problem,” Orr said. A few senators took issue with the bill, claiming that it misses the problem and should not take precedence over bills the Senate could pass that would represent current Baylor students.
The majority of the Senate agreed with the bill, citing the importance of one’s GPA in relation to the professional world. “This makes you a more serious player in the work world,” Sugar Land senior Meredith Meece said.
After Orr addressed the concerns and questions of his fellow senators, Houston senior and Student Body President Brian Kim held a vote on the bill.
The Student Senate passed the bill 29 to 14.
The new grading system will include minus grades, which the current grading scale does not. The proposed scale would not include A-plus or A-minus grades.
This bill would not affect students who entered Baylor under the current catalog.
Orr and the academic Affairs Committee are unsure of when the new grading policy would be implemented. if the university decides to put the bill into effect.
Now that the bill has been passed it must be reviewed and approved by a department in the university that can enact the bill. Colorado Springs, Colo., sophomore and chaplain Meagan Rowell began the meeting by challenging the members of the Senate to a week of kindness. Rowell encouraged senators to be kind in their pursuit of building a better Baylor.
The Senate voted in unanimous favor of swearing in six new members, including a chief justice, three junior senators, one freshman senator and a freshman secretary of the treasury.
