I urge our university administration to institute a Universal Credit/No Credit (C/NC) policy this semester and let us take care of our families, friends, communities, and ourselves. 

In her pro-universal pass piece for The Washington Post, Jenny Davidson, professor of English at Columbia University, states what should be a truism: “Education isn’t just about mastering material and improving skills. Education is about ethics.”  Our ethical concerns during this coronavirus crisis should show solidarity with low-income students.  

There’s no doubt low-income students will be disproportionately affected by the grading policy.  We are doing them a disservice by forcing them to take classes and worry about grades when they and their families are struggling.  It’s unfair for those of us in more privileged situations to sit comfortably in our childhood bedrooms while there are others who have to take the same classes but bear enormous financial responsibilities.  This imbalance was present and unjust before the crisis, but the pandemic has exacerbated it.  

Those students with higher-quality resources due to their socioeconomic circumstances will more likely be in a position to attain the GPA boost that is inherently the effect of opting in to receive a letter grade.  UVA student Trinity M. took to Twitter recently advocating for a universal pass policy so students like her, who don’t have the luxury to aim for that GPA boost, “don’t have to worry about 3 papers and final exams while also having to work almost every day to help pay bills.”  Although a universal pass would be the most equitable policy, some of us students are proposing Universal C/NC to administration as a compromise. 

We can worry about making up for lost time later.  As Professor Davidson suggests, “We should be looking ahead to the fall semester and thinking about how classes may need to be retooled in the light of work that’s compromised this semester.”  With the creativity of students and faculty, we can work towards designing a Fall  2020 that makes up for this semester’s loss in educational productivity that surely many students are feeling.  For example, UVA student-activist Zyahna Bryant says she is learning in some of her classes, but as for the rest, “It’s just busy work.”

We are doing our communities a disservice by prioritizing fiddling with equations and formatting essays for a grade while millions of people are losing their jobs and health insurance, likely torpedoing us into a Second Great Depression.  Mutual aid programs are springing up across the country, and more student participation would help them gain strength.  

We’ve already seen selfless student activism in the face of the pandemic in our own university community.  To cite just a few examples: UVA Student Council’s Hoos Helping Hoos, a comprehensive petition created by student activists, and two GoFundMe’s which, coupled with the activists’ petition and damning reporting by the Cville Weekly, pressured the university into supporting furloughed workers.  Universal C/NC would allow our university’s 16,000-strong undergraduate population to dedicate more time to this sort of community involvement.

This crisis has certainly taken a toll on mental health.  The anxiety and depression that has come from not seeing our friends, working by ourselves, missing our chosen families, and, in some cases, returning to cold or abusive households, will be reflected on our transcripts.  In the petition she penned in favor of a Universal C/NC policy, UVA student Tatiana Kennedy writes,

If the university really was prioritizing our health and wellbeing, they would realize that having grades during this unprecedented time is a great cause of unnecessary stress and anxiety. Learning online is hard enough without the overarching panic of a global pandemic, not to mention the exceptionally short transition period students were given to learn how to learn from a screen. Many students also left necessary medication in Charlottesville, which only made the transition to isolated online learning harder and the lack of their access to their medication likely affected their performance in their classes.

If solidarity with those already in less privileged circumstances, socioeconomic or psychological, is not convincing, then we should consider the precariousness of our situations.  We’re all one layoff or infection away from having our lives upended (Not to mention, this is already the reality for some of us.).  Say I “choose” (which for many won’t be a choice) a letter grade on April 28. Anyone would expect my grade to tank if a loved one is infected with the virus or laid off between then and my final exam.

It’s worth recognizing, also, the University administration’s disinterest in the student population’s opinion on this subject.  Our institution uses “student self-governance” as a recruitment tool but demonstrably has not implemented such a principle in decision-making during this crisis.  

For example, a few days ago, an email from Provost Magill to a student, who wishes to remain anonymous, was circulating on Twitter. The Provost took it as a point of pride, as a source of legitimacy, that the decision to create the—as former Student Council President Ellie Brasacchio explains—pointless, inequitable, and stressful Grade/Credit/General Credit/No Credit policy was made in part as a result of communicating with “dozens of students”: “You should know I heard—as did the school deans and academic deans—from dozens of students on this topic,” the Provost said.  We don’t know who those students were, but it’s hard not to speculate, as UVA student Christian May has, that “the vast majority of those students had wealthy families and home environments conducive to schoolwork.”  That leaves out, among others, the 13% of UVA students who receive Pell Grants.

Hearing from “dozens of students” is nowhere near getting the point of view and considering the personal and economic circumstances of over 16,000 undergraduates.  StudCo, however, is polling us through the end of the semester, and I urge University administration to take the data into account.