USG blasts Nassau Hall for lack of consultation

The USG lashed out against the administration for not adequately informing them of developments regarding grade inflation, the four-year residential colleges and other issues at its meeting Sunday night.

President Leslie-Bernard Joseph '06 said the USG only found out about the recently released findings of the Faculty Committee on Grading when he was contacted for comment by an Associated Press reporter.

"We only found out that they were releasing the report from the AP the night before when the reporter asked me for a reaction," Joseph said. "Then we were able to get some information about it but we, the students, had no idea of what was going to come out until the media already knew about it."

He added that because there is "still no report on the website, just a brief synopsis written by the communications office, it's hard for us to know what's happening to us."

Vice President Jesse Creed '07 said that Dean of the College Nancy Weiss Malkiel had been unreceptive to the idea of placing a student on the Faculty Committee on Grading or any other administration-supported group on grade inflation.

According to the Rights, Rules, Responsibilities handbook, parallel faculty and USG committees are to meet in a joint session at least once a year, and a USG representative from that committee is to be allowed to sit in on the faculty committee.

"We're not sure whether there is a committee or there's not a committee," Creed said. "Dean Malkiel keeps saying these issues don't pertain to us, but of course they do."

Tom Brown '07 and academics chair Robert Wai Wong '06 said they plan to work on a report that combines quantitative and anecdotal evidence of the ways in which the University's grade inflation policies are hurting students.

"In order for the administration to take us seriously, the report must be precise," Brown said. A report will be released by the end of the semester.

Sunshine Yin '08, a class senator, mentioned concerns about the lack of student involvement in the planning for the new four-year residential college system.

Current sophomores and freshmen will still be on campus when the colleges open in the fall of 2007, yet administrators have not allowed younger students to participate in many discussions about the colleges, Yin said. Last year's Dining and Social Options Task Force included only a few undergraduate students, all of whom were in the Class of 2005.

"There must be some kind of planning going on, even though administrators keep saying there's nothing to be done about the colleges," Yin said. "It's frustrating not to be included in the things that are going on that are all about us."

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Other issues raised at the meeting included the addition of new channels to TigerTV cable service for the 2006-07 academic year and improved transportation options for students who don't have cars.