Sign this petition if you want to show your solidarity in the unfair and unreasonable sudden letter-grade changes to the BUEC 342 Fall 2019 Course.
I will be contacting the department head regarding the grading scale that was provided to us for BUEC 342. If you are also frustrated with the recent change of letter grade thresholds, I ask for your help in joining my meeting with the department Chair of BUEC at 1pm today, as the more people we have, the better our chances of changing the results positively. He has not given the meeting location yet, if he has not by 1pm we will meet by the stairs on the second floor of business. If you feel even remotely frustrated with the result, I ask for your help in showing there are many who have been affected negatively. Please email me if you are interested, I will be providing the time and place as soon as they reply.
The instructor for this course is Dr. Runjun Liu. I had contacted Professor Liu regarding this issue and she replied that she is no longer able to change the grade cutoffs in our course, which by UofA policy requires the complaint to be registered to the department chair. In my opinion, the updated grade cutoffs are unreasonable and have the following issues:
- Violated the "Evaluation procedures and grading system" under the UofA Academic regulations, section 2 by not providing fair warning when developing circumstances had occurred and the instructor had emailed the letter grade cutoffs on Dec 27th, 2019. However, a different letter grade scheme was emailed to us on Jan 9th, 2020. Both cutoffs were not stipulated in the syllabus' grading criterion at the introduction of the course.
- Violated the "Evaluation procedures and grading system" under the UofA Academic regulations, section 2.a.ix, which additionally violates the Grading Procedure under the UofA Policies and Principles Online (UAPPOL). These are violated by a lack of clear grading scheme in the syllabus that these regulations administrate.
- Violated the "Evaluation procedures and grading system" under the UofA Academic regulations, section 4. and the UAPPOL grading procedure by being unclear within the grading criterion in the syllabus. Specifically, section 2 within the UAPPOL grading procedure regarding communication with students has been flagrantly violated, as course grading had not been clearly communicated in the course syllabus. This also violates Academic regulations in the University Calendar. The grading criterion within the Syllabus points to a section that does not exist in the current University Calendar. In addition, there is no recommended undergraduate grading distribution at its provided link, only a showcase of the letter grades and their corresponding grade point value.
- Many students feel these grade cutoffs are unreasonably high for the course. The Jan 9th grading scheme does not align properly, grades that were formerly passing are now failing, everyone in the scheme has been dropped a grade point, also there is an undefined letter grade between 40-44% as shown in the announcement.
- Violates section 1 of the UAPPOL Grading procedure by establishing a grading quota beyond the fall semester's resolution. Confirmed and provided in the Department chair's statement.
Please let me know if you would join me in meeting with the department chair at 1pm today, he will be telling me the location of the meeting soon. If he has not given me a location by then, please meet by the stairs on the second floor of business.
Thanks,
William
19 Comments
As a U of A graduate, I have firsthand experience with professors altering final grades so as to appease their subjective standing and reputation. It is ethically unsound to change grades once they are posted without just cause, given that students rely on these posted marks to apply for jobs and furthering their career. Given that the purpose of University is to assist with exactly this, the professor’s decision to abruptly change final grades is both unfair and counterintuitive to U of A’s mission statement. I sincerely hope things are set right, as I don’t want to be disappointed in my alma mater.
Don’t really like it when teachers lie to students..... not setting a very good example
I am extremely disappointed and frustrated with this situation. I was given a grade in December which I was told would be officially published on my transcript (via bear tracks grades) and therefore began my job search with COOP. I calculated my expected GPA, where I relied on the grade that I was given, and applied to jobs using that GPA. I now have a lower GPA as of yesterday, and therefore I am now made out to be a liar. I am very upset with this. I find it extremely unfair that I did not have my grades back BEFORE the winter 2020 semester, as this would never have happened. This just be fixed.
Not able to make it today because of a class time conflict but I stand by this petition. I was thoroughly pissed off when seeing her grade change and am glad William took the time to fight this.
This is extremely unfair and effects my outlook on careers. It is a shame I achieved what I thought would be one grade, to only get moved down for no apparent reason.
Absolutely unacceptable. Thank you William for taking action and leading us.
I can’t be there because I just flew into Edmonton from my coop job training. I’m sorry for the lengthy comment but I find it absolutely warranted to give my full opinion on the matter. I find it extremely unprofessional to be passing along grade cutoffs without actually knowing if they were approved or not (as did Mrs. Liu). This can have serious ramifications for students attempting to get into professional programs or coops who rely on swift knowledge of their grades. I also found the lack of explanation regarding why we received particular grades on assignments (case, and news report) to be unsatisfactory. Teachers should never be allowed to give a mark that’s below 100% on a presentation or written paper without providing feedback on why. I received a grade of 9/10 on my case presentation with no comment or feedback on why, and this 10% deduction made me fall below the 93% threshold for an A. Lastly, previous sections of Buec342 with RunJuan Liu in recent years ( Fall 2017 to be exact) have had averages as high as 3.6. It’s statistically impossible that our class performance itself warranted such a dramatic shift, and we were explicitly told in class she would assign letter grades to hit an average of B+. I asked her this question on the last class and this was the response she gave. I’m sure to an extent this isn’t Runjuan’s fault, but there does need to accountability on all parties. Is it really that hard to add a note on the syllabus that class average has to fall between “X and X”? Sadly we are the ones who the department decided to randomly screw over over the past 2/3 years of this course being offered.
Sign Petition
We never post to your account. Social sign-in is used only to verify your signature.
Add a comment?
Your signature will be added via . Tell others why you're signing — it's optional.
By signing, you accept our Terms and Privacy Policy and agree to occasional emails about petitions. Unsubscribe anytime.
Share this petition
Share this petition to help it reach more people.
Your share link
Sign this petition if you want to show your solidarity in the unfair and unreasonable sudden letter-grade changes to the BUEC 342 Fall 2019 Course.
I will be contacting the department head regarding the grading scale that was provided to us for BUEC 342. If you are also frustrated with the recent change of letter grade thresholds, I ask for your help in joining my meeting with the department Chair of BUEC at 1pm today, as the more people we have, the better our chances of changing the results positively. He has not given the meeting location yet, if he has not by 1pm we will meet by the stairs on the second floor of business. If you feel even remotely frustrated with the result, I ask for your help in showing there are many who have been affected negatively. Please email me if you are interested, I will be providing the time and place as soon as they reply.
The instructor for this course is Dr. Runjun Liu. I had contacted Professor Liu regarding this issue and she replied that she is no longer able to change the grade cutoffs in our course, which by UofA policy requires the complaint to be registered to the department chair. In my opinion, the updated grade cutoffs are unreasonable and have the following issues:
- Violated the "Evaluation procedures and grading system" under the UofA Academic regulations, section 2 by not providing fair warning when developing circumstances had occurred and the instructor had emailed the letter grade cutoffs on Dec 27th, 2019. However, a different letter grade scheme was emailed to us on Jan 9th, 2020. Both cutoffs were not stipulated in the syllabus' grading criterion at the introduction of the course.
- Violated the "Evaluation procedures and grading system" under the UofA Academic regulations, section 2.a.ix, which additionally violates the Grading Procedure under the UofA Policies and Principles Online (UAPPOL). These are violated by a lack of clear grading scheme in the syllabus that these regulations administrate.
- Violated the "Evaluation procedures and grading system" under the UofA Academic regulations, section 4. and the UAPPOL grading procedure by being unclear within the grading criterion in the syllabus. Specifically, section 2 within the UAPPOL grading procedure regarding communication with students has been flagrantly violated, as course grading had not been clearly communicated in the course syllabus. This also violates Academic regulations in the University Calendar. The grading criterion within the Syllabus points to a section that does not exist in the current University Calendar. In addition, there is no recommended undergraduate grading distribution at its provided link, only a showcase of the letter grades and their corresponding grade point value.
- Many students feel these grade cutoffs are unreasonably high for the course. The Jan 9th grading scheme does not align properly, grades that were formerly passing are now failing, everyone in the scheme has been dropped a grade point, also there is an undefined letter grade between 40-44% as shown in the announcement.
- Violates section 1 of the UAPPOL Grading procedure by establishing a grading quota beyond the fall semester's resolution. Confirmed and provided in the Department chair's statement.
Please let me know if you would join me in meeting with the department chair at 1pm today, he will be telling me the location of the meeting soon. If he has not given me a location by then, please meet by the stairs on the second floor of business.
Thanks,
William
19 Comments
It’s unfair to change the grading quota because everyone did a great job this year. The grading quota should be the same with all previous years.
As a U of A graduate, I have firsthand experience with professors altering final grades so as to appease their subjective standing and reputation. It is ethically unsound to change grades once they are posted without just cause, given that students rely on these posted marks to apply for jobs and furthering their career. Given that the purpose of University is to assist with exactly this, the professor’s decision to abruptly change final grades is both unfair and counterintuitive to U of A’s mission statement. I sincerely hope things are set right, as I don’t want to be disappointed in my alma mater.
Don’t really like it when teachers lie to students..... not setting a very good example
I am extremely disappointed and frustrated with this situation. I was given a grade in December which I was told would be officially published on my transcript (via bear tracks grades) and therefore began my job search with COOP. I calculated my expected GPA, where I relied on the grade that I was given, and applied to jobs using that GPA. I now have a lower GPA as of yesterday, and therefore I am now made out to be a liar. I am very upset with this. I find it extremely unfair that I did not have my grades back BEFORE the winter 2020 semester, as this would never have happened. This just be fixed.
Not able to make it today because of a class time conflict but I stand by this petition. I was thoroughly pissed off when seeing her grade change and am glad William took the time to fight this.
This is extremely unfair and effects my outlook on careers. It is a shame I achieved what I thought would be one grade, to only get moved down for no apparent reason.
Absolutely unacceptable. Thank you William for taking action and leading us.
I can’t be there because I just flew into Edmonton from my coop job training. I’m sorry for the lengthy comment but I find it absolutely warranted to give my full opinion on the matter. I find it extremely unprofessional to be passing along grade cutoffs without actually knowing if they were approved or not (as did Mrs. Liu). This can have serious ramifications for students attempting to get into professional programs or coops who rely on swift knowledge of their grades. I also found the lack of explanation regarding why we received particular grades on assignments (case, and news report) to be unsatisfactory. Teachers should never be allowed to give a mark that’s below 100% on a presentation or written paper without providing feedback on why. I received a grade of 9/10 on my case presentation with no comment or feedback on why, and this 10% deduction made me fall below the 93% threshold for an A. Lastly, previous sections of Buec342 with RunJuan Liu in recent years ( Fall 2017 to be exact) have had averages as high as 3.6. It’s statistically impossible that our class performance itself warranted such a dramatic shift, and we were explicitly told in class she would assign letter grades to hit an average of B+. I asked her this question on the last class and this was the response she gave. I’m sure to an extent this isn’t Runjuan’s fault, but there does need to accountability on all parties. Is it really that hard to add a note on the syllabus that class average has to fall between “X and X”? Sadly we are the ones who the department decided to randomly screw over over the past 2/3 years of this course being offered.
Help this petition grow
Share it with friends to help reach 100 signatures.
Sign Petition
We never post to your account. Social sign-in is used only to verify your signature.
Add a comment?
Your signature will be added via .
Tell others why you're signing — it's optional.
Signing with Google or Facebook verifies your signature instantly — no email needed.
By signing, you accept our Terms and Privacy Policy and agree to occasional emails about petitions. Unsubscribe anytime.
Share this petition
Share this petition to help it reach more people.
Your share link
Petitions like this
Other petitions you might want to support
Scan to share
Anyone who scans this can sign the petition.
It’s unfair to change the grading quota because everyone did a great job this year. The grading quota should be the same with all previous years.