Last updated on April 6.
San Jose State is extending the deadline for students to opt in for their classes to be counted as Credit/No Credit, Provost and vice president of academic affairs Vincent Del Casino Jr. stated in a campuswide email.
Rather than a letter grade, students will either get a Credit/No Credit grade on their transcript. The form will open on April 7 and be available until May 1.
Students however, will not be able to revert back to a letter grade after May 1 if they opt for Credit/No Credit grades.
But students can also request a grade change to the Credit/No Credit option after the semester ends from the time their grade is posted through June 8. Del Casino states that with this option students could expect a considerable delay in updating the transcript.
In a separate email, A.S. President Branden Parent stated all physical education classes will automatically switch to Credit/No Credit, with no option to receive a letter grade.
He stated the university will convert the courses once the kinesiology department provides a list of classes to Del Casino’s office.
“Say you're taking a basketball course, they can still test on the specifics about the history of basketball, I guess the way you dribble, but they can't actually, like, monitor if you did exercise,” Director of Academic Affairs Anoop Kaur said in a Zoom interview.
Kaur also said general education requirements and major classes will also offer the Credit/No Credit option.
During Wednesday's executive committee of the Academic Senate meeting, Parent said the Credit/No Credit option deadline was approved for May 1 after the committee discussed the various factors regarding the deadline date.
Parent said May 1 would be easier for the Registrar to process. May 12, or “dead day,” would have been an issue for the faculty union because faculty members are not allowed to work during vacation. With the deadline before finals, graduating students will be able to receive their diplomas.
Parent said both graduating and continuing students reached out to him and Kaur to voice their concerns about the online transition “tanking” their GPAs.
Credit would equal a C-minus or better for undergraduates and a B-minus or better for graduates while a no credit would be the same as a failing grade. Neither Credit/No Credit will count toward students’ GPAs.
SJSU’s online transition first started two weeks ago when Santa Clara County health officials ordered residents to shelter in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Parent and Kaur said following the online transitions, students complained about doubled workloads professors gave them to make up for canceled face-to-face classes.
“A lot of my friends came to me and they're like, ‘I can't learn math online. I can't learn organic chemistry online,’ ” Kaur said.
Parent also said he heard student concerns about some professors not accommodating students with hearing disabilities.
Parent and Kaur encouraged the Academic Senate to pass a resolution on March 23, in hopes of providing more flexibility and support for students.
“It was a way to [answer], ‘How are we going to help students, where this semester might jeopardize their cumulative GPA?’ ” he said.
Kaur said other schools such as the University of California, Berkeley instituted a Passed/Not Passed system in response to the online transition. The California State University system does not use the pass or fail system but instead uses a Credit/No Credit system which students always had the option to choose, they just needed to make that change on the last day of adding classes.
But both Parent and Kaur stressed that this option might not be the best choice for all students.
“There are so many cons if we don't hit the right thing, because there will be a minority pool of students, or a very large pool of minority students, that are going to be negatively affected [because of] this,” Parent said.
Some of the people that might get affected, Parent said, are students on academic probation. He said if those students opt in for the Credit/No Credit option, then they wouldn’t be able to raise their GPA and could end up stuck in probation.
However, according to the Academic Senate's resolution on the new system, academic probation has been suspended this semester. This means students would not get disqualified if they opt in to the Credit/No Credit system, but they would still remain on probation next semester.
The Credit/No Credit system would also have an effect on graduate students seeking teaching credentials, because they require letter grades to earn their credentials.
Director Kaur said other students who could be affected are veterans, international students and student-athletes.
“[Students] will get affected negatively if they do not understand the implications of making the wrong decision,” Parent said. “It only affects you negatively, if you're not informed . . . If you just don't take credit, no credit, you're just at the same position you were without it.”
