IUSA hits the books 'Hard'

The IU Student Association will push administrators to keep a pair of key student centers open two hours later.\nBut the plan comes with a price tag.\nAnd IU's spokesman isn't sure who will foot the bill.\nIUSA's Project Work Hard, the spin-off to the group's Vote Hard campaign, focuses on campus issues.\nThe plan seeks to lengthen the hours of the Main Library and the Student Recreation and Sports Complex, raise the GPA given for an A+ to a 4.3 and make copies of The New York Times available to students on campus.\n"Basically, it's a three-part initiative," said IUSA treasurer Blair Greenberg, a junior.\nThe first part will attempt to lengthen the library's hours to 2 a.m., ideally for the first five floors of the undergraduate section, Greenberg said. The plan also keeps the SRSC open later.\nIU spokesman Bill Stephan said IUSA's initiatives could come with a cost to students.\n"You have to assume that it will entail more resources, and so the question becomes, 'Is it an extraordinary amount of resources?" Stephan said.\nStephan said if there is strong support from the student body, he believes extended hours should be accomplished without raising fees.\nIUSA is also pushing for a small revamping of the GPA system, so if students earn an A+, that grade would show up as a 4.3 instead of a 4.0.\n"What it does really is it separates the outstanding grades from the good grades," Greenberg said. \nJunior Yoni Zofan, IUSA's director of academic affairs agreed that students who receive an A+ on their transcript should be rewarded.\n"If you earn an A+, it needs to be distinguished from an A," Zofan said. "An A+ right now is really meaningless."\nZofan said he believes that once IUSA gets the backing they need from the administration, then everyone will support the change.\n"If you think about it logically, you can't really argue with it," he said.\nIU Dean of Students Richard McKaig said he has talked to many students about the current GPA scale and understands their concerns.\n"I would agree with students that if a B+ is different than a B, than an A+ is different than an A," McKaig said.\nStephan worried that a higher scale could increase grade inflation, already a nationwide issue, but was unsure about the effect at IU.\nThe GPA change would eventually have to go through the Bloomington Faculty Council and onto the IU Board of Trustees for approval, which could take close to a year to finalize, McKaig said.\nThe third part of the initiative will start next week with the distribution of 400 copies of The New York Times to students on campus as part of a semester-long trial process.\nZofan said IUSA wants to do things no other student administration has done, and this initiative is one of those things.\n"We want to get moving in the right direction," Zofan said. "We need to start somewhere, so we're starting now"