Grad honors to reflect all grades

Graduation honors in this year's commencement program will be based on students' full academic transcripts -- all eight semesters of grades -- making this May the first time the honors will be accurate, Secretary Barbara Stevens said recently. The previous method of determining honors "made no sense," according to Stevens, because academic honors were determined from seven semesters of classwork and did not reflect grades from the second semester of senior year. But staff in the secretary's office said that for the plan to work, professors must hand in their grades on time. Allison Rose, the secretary's staff assistant, said last week that the issue has been taken up with Provost Michael Aiken and she said that she assumes all grades will be submitted on the day they are due. Stevens also said the provost has been "very supportive." She said the final semester's grades were never included before because of the short time period -- less than a week -- between the day the final grades are due and commencement. During those few days, grades must be scanned into computers and the honors inserts must be printed and delivered to Franklin Field in time for graduation exercises. "This is not going to be easy," Stevens said. "We're pushing hard to get it done." Linda Koons, executive assistant to the provost, said the problem of late submission of grades is getting worse. She said the provost's office sent reports to all school deans in January which listed professors who handed in their grades late last semester. Koons said the number of professors who were late "literally doubled" from last spring semester, even though the registrar extended the deadline for final grades from 72 hours after the last final exam until January 4. "There's no way the deans can enforce [the grade deadline]," Koons said. She said the issue will be taken up this afternoon at a Council of Undergraduate Deans meeting. Stevens said there have been "some complaints" about the honors' inaccuracies. "We've always had a disclaimer [that said], 'This is not a complete list,' " Rose said. "[But] people could not be happy knowing there were so many mistakes."