April 17th, 2020
Dear Swarthmore Students,
I am writing to inform you that, after extensive reflection and discussion, the faculty voted to move to a mandatory Credit/No Credit grading policy for the spring 2020 semester; there will be no opportunity to uncover individual grades.
As you know, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, we had previously adopted a grading policy of Credit/No Credit with the ability for students to uncover grades. That decision was based on the work of two faculty-led committees: the Curriculum Committee brought forth a recommendation to the Council on Educational Policy (CEP).
Since then, as we continued the transition to remote learning, faculty members have engaged their students on Zoom calls, phone calls, and over email — in virtual classrooms and office hours, and in one-on-one conversations. We’ve learned that the situation has been inconvenient and uncomfortable for some and extraordinarily difficult for others.
As your deans, professors, coaches, laboratory and language instructors, and advisors, we want each of you to know that we see and hear the dedication and steadfastness of some of you to engage with faculty and fellow students, even amid the uncertainty and disruption of this global pandemic.
We know that many of you are suffering financial distress because family members have lost jobs; you are joining classes from time zones across the globe; and some of you are studying in family homes that have imposed a strange and uncomfortable duality to the identities you were able to express on campus.
We have taken all of these things into consideration as we have wrestled with how both to do right by you while acknowledging our own challenges in this moment.
Thoughtful viewpoints on our grading policy were voiced throughout nearly two hours of discussion at two separate faculty meetings which saw more than 190 attendees each, a faculty survey which collected impressions from more than 220 faculty and instructional staff members, and a faculty vote in which 203 faculty participated.
Although the conversations highlighted clear and, at times, sharp differences between faculty members, what came through at every point along the way was each faculty member’s passion for supporting you, our students, to the best of their ability.
During this pandemic, every member of society is faced with seemingly impossible challenges every day. Coming up with a uniform and fair grading policy acceptable to all students and faculty members is but one more item on that list. We know that some of you will be pleased with the decision and others of you disappointed with it, but please understand that it has not been reached lightly or without deep concern for all of you and for your education.
Professor Grace Ledbetter, Director of the Honors Program will be directly in touch with Honors students to outline what this means for them.
Your patience and your perseverance are inspiring. We wish you and your families all good health, good luck, and a good end to the semester.
Sincerely,
Sarah Willie-LeBreton
Provost and Dean of the Faculty
April 22nd, 2020
Dear Students,
I appreciate the responses — questions, concerns, gratitude, deep disappointment and even anger — that many of you have shared about the College’s decision to move to a Credit/No-Credit grading policy for the spring 2020 semester, eliminating the option for you to uncover your grades. The full faculty voted on this policy change, with a clear majority voting to approve it. While this decision is final and exceptions will not be made, I hope those of you who are frustrated by it find some reassurance in knowing that the faculty did not arrive at it easily. It was informed by hours of debate and discussion and deep consideration of a range of concerns raised by students and faculty, and it was made only after serious consideration of all points of view. I hope this note and these answers to some of the most frequently asked questions help address your questions about the decision and its impact on students this semester.
This global pandemic has introduced levels of uncertainty, pain, and grief, and its effects are felt unevenly across our student body, just as they are across the globe. Some of you are, thankfully, relatively unscathed by the virus and the dramatic changes we have all gone through to manage its damage; others are struggling to learn remotely amid circumstances that were unimaginable just two months ago, spanning a spectrum of challenges from unreliable access to the internet to the collapse of your families’ economic stability to the loss of loved ones. It is, in a word, devastating.
Even in normal times, you regularly navigate myriad life situations external to your Swarthmore education that interfere with your experience on campus. The College commits a tremendous amount of time, energy, and financial resources toward mitigating those factors and, to the greatest extent possible, toward putting all of our students on equal footing. COVID-19 has significantly limited our ability to do that. As the faculty began to fully appreciate that reality, we realized that it was all but impossible to equitably assign grades while you are being affected by this unprecedented crisis in such vastly different ways.
I hope that we can collectively maintain perspective during this moment. Your professors are here to continue supporting you through your academic journey — now more than ever. The absence of a letter grade doesn’t mean the absence of their evaluation of your work, and they are prepared to provide you with recommendations for fellowships, jobs, and graduate and professional school. We all want you to succeed, but we acknowledge that some of you may feel defeated. We’re here to walk the path with you, and when you are able to thrive, even amid these adverse conditions, we celebrate with you.
Our decision to move to a Credit/No-Credit semester is in step with many of our peer institutions. In fact, given that so many colleges and universities have moved to versions of the Credit/No-Credit policy this spring, many graduate and professional schools have already shared plans to consider alternative forms of evaluation more fully as they review applications, such as recommendations, statements of purpose, overall academic work, and extracurricular activities.
All of us wish we had more time to respond to this crisis, and I am sorry that this change comes at this point in the semester. Like everyone, our faculty sought to make the best choices under less-than-ideal circumstances. As the College looks ahead to the fall, we are grateful to have more time to plan comprehensively across a number of scenarios so that students and faculty alike have clearer expectations from the beginning.
In the past few days, I’ve heard some of you ask, “Why should I invest so much in my schoolwork if I’m not being graded?” While I understand that kind of deep frustration and disappointment in response to this decision, I hope you’ll agree that your educational experience at Swarthmore cannot be defined by a semester’s grades. You came to Swarthmore to learn, to push yourself, to test your thinking and ideas, and to prepare yourself for a life of engagement, leadership, and furthering of the common good. You probably didn’t expect to be tested so soon, so profoundly, or in ways so challenging that demanded your intellectual and emotional growth so quickly. Why should you keep at it? Because this extended moment will eventually pass, and society will need your participation and your resilience, your thinking and your heart.
Sincerely,
Sarah Willie-LeBreton
Provost and Dean of the Faculty
CC: Swarthmore Faculty and Staff members, and parents and families