Students of Indiana University, a member on the website of change.org, began a petition Friday asking for IU to allow the option of satisfactory and unsatisfactory grading for all IU classes for both the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters because of the added stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This petition has no individual student name attached to it on change.org’s website, but it was developed by a group of IU students, with Dana Taborn being the official author of the petition. It is directed toward the Bloomington Faculty Council, Provost Lauren Robel, IU, University President Michael McRobbie, IU Student Government and Vice Provost and Dean of Students Dave O’Guinn.
If the university does decide to change its grading system due to this petition, it would give students the option to make any of their classes satisfactory/unsatisfactory for the 2020-21 academic year.
Moses Mang, a student who helped create the petition, said there had been a group chat of people who were voicing their concerns, and Taborn took those worries and began to piece together a petition asking the university to change its grading policies for both this semester and next.
Taborn said she and her friends were seeing the effect of the pandemic hit people around her particularly hard this semester, especially due to most classes being online, which prompted her to take action.
“I basically just wanted IU to know that there are so many students who are really struggling this semester. I think that we didn’t expect remote learning to be as difficult as it is,” Taborn said.
She hopes to have the option of satisfactory/unsatisfactory grading for both semesters this academic year, but she also was hoping the university would act quickly to make this transition to satisfactory/unsatisfactory grading to give those with 13-week classes the opportunity for that option.
She also said the petition was not meant to be disrespectful toward the university, but rather she wanted to turn IU’s attention to the needs of its students.
Mang said he believes students are struggling to balance all that they are being presented with this semester.
“I really don’t think it’s fair of IU, or any college really, to expect students to have to balance their academics, their mental health, their social life, extracurriculars, resume building and you know all the perks of being a student alongside a pandemic,” Mang said. “I feel like that’s extremely unfair to ask of students because, really, this is a pandemic where there is unforeseen conditions happening.”
He said he thinks pass/fail grades, in the middle of a pandemic, would be beneficial for students to help them balance all that is occurring within their lives.
"There are literally thousands of people dying," Mang said.
Mang along with Taborn said they believe the mental health of the student body at this point in the semester is at a low point.
“I can just see that so many people are doing poorly just because I feel like school already will cause a certain amount of stress in a person’s life, but there’s a whole pandemic going on,” Mang said. “It’s just a lot to carry on our minds.”
Taborn echoed those sentiments adding that she feels sorry for the freshmen who didn’t get to have the opportunities that the upperclassmen, like her, got to have during her first year at IU.
“It’s really sad to see,” said Taborn.
As of now, the petition has more than 2,000 signatures, and many students have left comments explaining why they believe the university should take action.
Joey Brewington, a freshman who signed the petition and left a comment, said online classes are really difficult this year and he and other freshmen are struggling to adjust to a remote learning college experience.
“It doesn’t feel like the school is trying to help us. It feels like we’re kind of, you know, struggling on our own up to our necks and nobody is leading out their hand to pull us out of the water,” said Brewington.
Taborn and others who made the petition are set to speak with an IUSG Congressional representative this Friday about the petition and how they would like to move forward.
