Dear Colleagues,
I know that many of you have been hearing from our students that they are deeply concerned about the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic will have on their academic performance during the current semester. Our primary responsibilities are to care for our students鈥� health and wellbeing, support their continued academic success, provide a mechanism for students to reduce uncertainty in the short-term and not to prolong and elevate the stress and anxiety they are facing, all while focusing on their achievement of student learning outcomes.
For the past week, USF鈥檚 Academic and Student Success leadership team, across all campuses, has been developing a thoughtful yet temporary shift in course grading options that will permit students to request a change from the awarding of letter grades to Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) for Spring 2020. Throughout this process, we have consulted with college deans, student leaders, Faculty Senate presidents on all campuses, along with the president of the USF System Faculty Council, and we have sought guidance from SACSCOC and specialized accrediting agencies. This temporary change has been approved unanimously by the aforementioned stakeholders and USF leadership, including the senior vice president for USF Health, the provost, and the president. Because you will have questions, and I鈥檓 quite sure you will soon hear from your students, I wanted to provide you with the courtesy of this advanced notice.
Tomorrow (Wednesday, March 25), we will share this temporary change in course grading option with our students and post a set of related FAQs for students, faculty and staff, which will provide essential guidance and full details on this matter.
The following information will be important for faculty members to understand:
- Instructors will not need to take any action as students carefully consider well-informed decisions concerning this option.
- Instructors will continue to submit letter grades for students through Canvas. Faculty members will not know (unless a student informs them) which students in their class(es) have opted for a shift to S/U. For those students choosing this option, the S/U will be awarded based upon letter grade equivalency in the current catalog.
This notice will include important guidance on Withdrawal (which we discourage) and Incomplete grades. You will be able to access all details, beginning tomorrow, at the Faculty Toolkit.
Meanwhile, thank you again for the dedication that you have shown during these extraordinary times.
Best regards,
Ralph C. Wilcox
Provost and Executive Vice President