Second-year College students in line for Intermediate Honors may face a change in selection criteria if College faculty vote next week to nix the current minimum 3.4 GPA requirement and use class rank instead.
After finding that a disproportionate number of College students receive the honor, faculty members hope to level the playing field among the University's four eligible undergraduate schools, where fewer students maintain 3.4 GPAs.
To alleviate this disparity, the Committee for Educational Policy and Curriculum (CPEC) will call for Intermediate Honors to be bestowed upon the top 20 percent of the rising third-year class.
The proposal also calls to increase the required credit hours from 59 to 60.
"We're trying to have a consistent policy that students can understand and that will be uniform in all of the schools," said CEPC Chairman Donald E. Ramirez, a math professor.
While the College is now addressing the policy change, the Architecture, Engineering and Nursing Schools are expected to consider such a change in the near future.
"The Office of the Provost has encouraged consistent policy among the schools," said College Dean Melvyn P. Leffler. Now, "each of the schools has its own policy, partly as a result of grade inflation in the College," Leffler said.
Faculty members in the Architecture, Engineering and Nursing Schools have begun considering the uniform policy change.
"It is my impression that the policy change would make the numbers consistent in all of the schools," said Paxton Marshall, assistant dean of the Engineering School's undergraduate programs.
A policy change would not significantly affect the Engineering School since about 20 percent of Engineering students have qualified for Intermediate Honors in the past, Marshall said.
While the proposal is currently in the hands of College faculty, third-year College student and Intermediate Honors recipient Mary Beal said she was in favor of the policy change.
"I definitely think the change would make it more equal across all of the schools," Beal said. "It sounds like a just proposal."
Leffler said support for the policy change appears to come from all areas of the University community.
"Most of the people with whom I've spoken are quite supportive," Leffler said. "Hereafter, we'll all have the same criterion."
Members of the College Faculty will convene on Nov. 30 to vote on the proposed policy change.
If approved, the new policy will go into immediate effect.
Read More
Honor Committee considers formal ban of AI detectors as evidence in trials
By Lexie Stadler | 18 hours agoThe Committee also addressed balancing student perspectives with those of Committee representatives during panel discussions.
Pro-Palestinian protesters form encampment near University Chapel
By CD News Staff | 18 hours agoThe encampment overlapped with a separate “May Day” protest on the Lawn, which was hosted by student activist group U.Va. Dissenters and the U.Va. Apartheid Divest Coalition.
Another aggravated assault incident reported to UPD
By Thomas Baxter | 19 hours agoThis is the first community alert of May.
