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The proposal that the faculty submitted would remove the dean’s office from the process, and replace the dean with a committee of three faculty members, one of which would be from the division of the CLA that the appeal comes from. For example, under this plan, if an appeal came from an art class, one member from the humanities division would have to be on the committee.

Professor and Philosophy Chair Nancy Holland said that the AAC feels that a group of faculty members should have the last say on grade reviews. Holland points to the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) standard as the model for the proposal. According to Holland, the last stop in stop in grade review is also a faculty committee in the the AAUP standard.

Holland said that the AAUP functions at collective bargaining universities, such as the University of Minnesota, as a professors’ union. A supreme court decision declared that private liberal arts colleges such as Hamline cannot have unionized faculty, because faculty also act as management, Holland said. At Hamline, AAUP acts as a professional society, and Holland said that the university has the largest membership of any Minnesota private college.

HUSC passed a resolution on Sept. 27 expressing student concerns with the proposal. The resolution posed concerns about the neutrality of faculty members judging grade reviews within their departments.
HUSC president Shanelle Evens also expressed concern over the fact that students were not originally involved in the process.

“We wanted students to be aware of the proposal, but [HUSC] was only given twenty-four hours to make a resolution and express the student body’s opinion,” Evens said.

After passing the resolution, Evens attended the faculty meeting on Oct. 5 and presented the resolution to the faculty.

Some faculty members were surprised to hear about the resolution.

“There was dismay on the behalf of the faulty that there is so little trust in the faculty; We believe that the committee under our proposal would be neutral because they would have to justify amongst themselves why they are doing what they are doing, rather that one dean behind closed doors [doing the] deciding,” Holland said.

Associate Dean Alzada Tipton makes the final decision in the grade review process. Tipton said that it is ultimately the Dean who has the overall responsibility for the education quality at Hamline.

“The [proposed] amendment had the committee as the last stop and that is not something that I can support because the dean’s office has the ultimate responsibility to ensure students’ quality of education;
therefore I think the dean’s office always has to be the last court of appeal,” Tipton said.

Dean Davenport shared similar concerns.

“I think we are very close to something that could work. I have no objections to the faculty playing a major role in grade appeals- that piece is fine, but in the interest of transparency you also need to acknowledge that the dean’s office is the accountable party,” Davenport said.

Tipton said that she couldn’t necessarily say she was for or against the proposed amendment, because if the committee was added as a step after the department head’s appeal and before the Dean’s office, it could lighten the workload of the dean’s office.

But this process may take a lot of time, and in some student’s cases, time could be a major factor.
HUSC president Evens shared this sentiment.

“I see the addition of the committee to the current process as a compromise as long as the process could be timely. It might take as long as six months for the process to work, and that could be harmful for a student who is depending on graduation,” Evens said.

The proposal did not pass into policy at the last faculty meeting, and has been returned to the AAC for further review.