To the Editor:
There has been recent discussion regarding a proposal that I made to change the course drop procedures. This proposal has been passed by the Committee on Instruction and will be discussed by the Faculty later this year. Some of the important reasons that impelled me to suggest changes in our present system have not been fully presented, nor has there been much emphasis on one key aspect of the new proposal.
During the five to six week period in the middle of the term when students would be allowed to withdraw from courses, the course would not be erased from their record, but would remain on it with a symbol "W" in place of the grade, indicating that the student withdrew from the course. The transcript would clearly indicate the meaning of such a symbol, and that there is no stigma to be attached to it. However, the transcript would indicate what actually happened, namely that the student began the course but did not complete it. This is not the case now, when a course is completely removed from the record if a petition to drop is approved.
I wrote a memo describing the reasons for my proposal, along with some discussion of the details of how it would work. I have placed a copy of that memo on the PUBLIC file server, which can be accessed by opening the News & Information folder and then the Registrar folder, so that those interested can see more of the details of this plan. I'd like to cite three paragraphs from that memo here to give a clearer idea of my rationale for suggesting this change:
"I think the simple fact that during the 1993-94 academic year there were 547 of these (late course drop) petitions indicates that our system is not doing very well. (By contrast there were 179 petitions in 1985-86; for the single week before this memo was written, the eighth week of the 1994 Fall term, there were 35 petitions). It is simply impossible, short of our office becoming a detective agency, to judge this mass of material fairly. As it is, a great deal of time is spent by deans, faculty members, the Registrar's office, and students themselves on the administrative details of this process. There are other complications. Individual faculty members vary greatly in the information they provide and in the perspectives that they take toward various circumstances that students use as justifications for their petitions. Students are sometimes quite reluctant to submit intimate or embarrassing information regarding their health, finances, family situations, etc. as the petitions become part of their official file. It also does not seem desirable that the institution maintain such information.
Finally, and perhaps most important, it appears to me that certain students, through lack of knowledge of the process, unwillingness to commit certain matters to a paper record, or lack of appropriate counseling, are not using the system when it might be advantageous for them, while others (my sense is a larger number) are taking advantage of it. The judgmental nature of the process is also troublesome to me; in some cases students feel intimidated by the process for this reason even when they have more than adequate reason to request a late drop.
For about two years I have been considering ways to change the present system to one which would be simpler, non-judgmental, and provide the students with basic control over their academic decisions, while still preserving the basic academic integrity and fairness to all students that is essential in our community. I have met with the deans in the Dean of the College area and also in the Dean of Faculty office to discuss possible approaches to this issue, and have consulted (at meetings and by electronic mail) the Registrars of the other Ivy schools and the 12-College institutions regarding their practices. A significant number of these schools allow a period when a student can withdraw from courses, essentially on their own, subject to certain overall policies such as maintaining a full-time load. The course remains on the transcript with an indicator, typically W, indicating that the student withdrew. It is a variant of this system, now quite widespread, that I propose to replace our present system."
