Hope Scholarships // Grade Changes
WP/WF Grades and Deadlines // Grade Appeals
Nearly every incoming Tennessee freshman at UT now has a Hope (lottery) scholarship. The GPA required to keep this scholarship, which was established by the state legislature, is above what most UT students historically have been able to maintain. On the other hand, the scholarships provide additional motivation for students to work hard for good grades and ultimately a majority of students may keep them for four years. However, whether or not a student will lose a scholarship must play no role in the assignment of grades, which should reflect only students’ knowledge and understanding of the material in the course.
Grade changes after grades have been turned in at the end of the semester will not be approved without a well-defined, legitimate reason such as computational error or misapplication of stated grading policies.
It is the student's responsibility to be aware of the WP/WF deadline and get the withdrawal form signed by his/her instructor prior to the deadline. The deadline is strictly enforced by the university, and mathematics faculty, including the head of the department, do not have the ability to assign a grade of WP or WF after the deadline. Students should not ask teachers to write letter on their behalf to waive the deadline. A student with a documented reason why he/she could not physically contact his/her teacher during the week preceding the deadline may wish to contact the registrar's office directly. There is no university or departmental policy about assigning WP versus WF; students should discuss the policy with their instructors.
According to the Undergraduate Catalog, UT students have a right to appeal grades for the following reasons:
• A clearly unfair decision (such as lack of consideration of circumstances
clearly beyond the control of the student, e.g., a death in the family, illness
or accident);
• Unacceptable instruction/evaluation procedures (such as deviation from
stated policies on grading criteria, incompletes, late paper, examinations,
or class attendance);
• Inability of instructor to deal with course responsibilities;
or
• An exam setting which makes concentration extremely difficult.
An appeal is necessary only if an agreement cannot be reached with the course instructor; students who appeal to higher administration without first consulting with the instructor will be referred back to the instructor unless there is a compelling reason why the student is not comfortable communicating with the instructor. If discussion with the instructor does not resolve the situation then the student should contact Dr. Amy Szczepanski for courses below Math 141 or Dr. Chuck Collins for Math 141 and higher. In case of death in the family, illness, accident, or similar situation, proper documentation will be required for an appeal.
Appeals on the basis of unacceptable instruction/evaluation procedures will require clear evidence. For example, the fact that a student made higher grades in high school math courses than in a college math course is not evidence of unacceptable instruction. Likewise, the fact that several students are failing a course is not evidence of unacceptable instruction; almost all appeals on such grounds are denied by the department associate head because the grade distribution in the course (i.e. the number of A’s, B’s, and so on) is verified to be within the normal range for the course in question.
Finally, “unfairness” is intrinsic to a particular class and not relative to other sections of the same course. Meaningful comparisons between the teaching and grading methods of different teachers are virtually impossible to make. For example, one teacher may assign a grade of A for an 85, while another may require a 90 for an A, but the first teacher may have more difficult exams to compensate. If an instructor has reasonable grading policies and applies these policies uniformly among students in the class then the grading will be presumed to be fair.