UF's grading system, which is being changed to include minus grades, will premier a semester later than planned.
UF Provost Joe Glover announced the new grading scale at Thursday's Faculty Senate meeting. Glover said the scale would be ready by summer A.
Minus grades were originally approved by the Senate in December 2006, according to Senate records.
According to Alligator archives, former UF Provost Janie Fouke said in February that the new system would be ready by January.
The new grading system won't just add new grades: It will change the value of plus grades as well. For example, a B+, which is currently worth 3.5 grade points, will be worth 3.33 points. A B- will be worth 2.67 points.
Student Senate records state thatplus grades were added at UF in 1974 at the law school and adopted by the rest of UF four years later.
The new grading system brings with it an array of side effects, including a possible fluctuations of student grade point averages.
It could also affect whether students earn math and writing credits from their classes, Glover said.
Florida law states that students must earn a C or higher in a class to earn such credits.
Students who take courses pass/fail, which requires a grade of C or higher to pass, will need to earn higher grades to pass. Eligibility for financial aid and honors status could also be put at risk, Glover said.
The new system will require professors to change their syllabuses and UF to modify transcripts and the algorithm it uses to compute GPAs, he said.
Student Body President Kevin Reilly, who sponsored a Student Senate resolution in 2006 opposing minus grades, said he is against minus grades because they will lower students' GPAs though students will not be doing anything differently.
Chris Snodgrass, a UF English professor who voted in favor of minus grades in 2006, said minus grades allow professors to be more precise when grading students' performance.
Snodgrass said the grades will give students a better idea of how they are doing in each class.
According to a study of grades at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which had plus grades, the average undergraduate GPA dropped from 3.11 to 3.05 the year after minus grades were introduced.
But over three years, the average GPA rebounded to a 3.1 before dropping the next year to a 3.08.
Eight of the 10 other universities governed by the Florida Board of Governors already have minus grades, according to a survey on the Faculty Senate's Web site.
Also at the meeting, UF President Bernie Machen discussed the results of a new student survey that he said poses troubling questions for the quality of education at UF.
The National Survey of Student Engagement surveyed students at 774 colleges and universities across the country. The survey found that UF students were satisfied with their education and experience, but it also showed that UF is not challenging its students as much as its peer universities, Machen said.
Machen said UF students reported lower levels of class participation and fewer written assignments than students at peer universities.
"Some of these variables could be impacted by our horrible faculty-student ratio," he said.
