USG commends pass/no pass petition, discusses decreased budget

The Undergraduate Student Government advocated for a change to the grading system for the fall semester at Tuesday’s Senate meeting after a circulating petition created by students urged the administration to adopt a pass/no pass option for courses. 

The petition calls for the University to consider the conditions many students are facing during the ongoing pandemic. The petition, created Saturday, has more than 2,600 signatures at the time of publication. 

“Please, with all that is going on do not try to bring our grades back to our ‘normal’ grading system,” the petition read. “The world we are living in right now is not normal and our grading system should reflect that. Classes have not gotten any easier but the state of the world is much, much harder than it was at the beginning of this year.”

Sen. Dario Arganese brought up the petition to the Senate after receiving feedback from undergraduate students in text messages regarding the issue. In these messages, students asked Arganese about the feasibility of the pass/no pass option, if the USC administration was looking into student concerns and if the Senate could speak with the administration about a solution.

“A lot of USC students recently have been contracting COVID,” Arganese said. “They essentially have to both catch up for the weeks or a week that they missed and make sure that they’re keeping on track once they are healed … So I feel like offering the pass/no pass option could be really beneficial for students.”

In an interview with the Daily Trojan, USG President Gabe Savage said he had discussed the possibility of a pass/no pass semester with Provost Charles Zukoski back in August. Savage emphasized the need for the option as students are dealing with financial instability, sickness, grief and loss. 

“That’s really where students are finding themselves in places of greater need,” Savage said. “It’s in those areas that reducing the stress associated with the grades this semester is going to do good things for students who have to worry about so much more than just being a student right now.” 

Zukoski did not respond to requests for comment on the possibility of a pass/no pass semester policy for the fall. 

Savage, who also signed the petition, stated his support and called for the administrators’ attention on the issue. 

“This administration must acknowledge that being a student during these times doesn’t even begin to compare to what it means to be a student under normal circumstances,” Savage wrote in the petition’s comment section.  

Wary of such a change in grading, Sen. Jack Rasmussen said pass/no pass was implemented during the spring semester and applying it now would be unfair to students who have worked hard for their grades during the fall semester. 

“I was very cognizant of Sen. Rasmussen’s opinion pertaining to if there was a universal pass/no pass system, that it would be unfair to students that do put a lot of time and effort into the classes every day,” Arganese said. “That’s a really valid point. But I also appreciated the other opinions regarding different systems of implementing this pass/no pass such as making it not universal, giving students an option to opt in or out so they could still get the letter grade.”

During the meeting, Sen. Shreya Chanda said that while it is important to maintain the integrity of the classroom, the problems that caused USC to accept the pass/no pass option during the spring semester are still applicable this semester. 

Sen. Ruben Romeo said he and other senators would review mental health needs during the pandemic to understand and advocate for proposals like the pass/no pass options depending on students’ needs. 

“We’re focusing on a study for positive mental health strategies during COVID-19,” Romeo said in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “But in order to get positive mental health strategies during this, you also have to know what they had to overcome, what makes them resilient, what they’re facing as a stressor.” 

The Senate also discussed updates to the Fall 2020 Budget Proposal and increasing budgets for certain USG programming committees. The proposal was presented by Savage at last week’s meeting after a decrease of USG funds by nearly 90%. The budget was drastically cut by the University to reduce student fees.

The amendment presented to the Senate was to increase the Concerts Committee budget from $95,000 to $97,000 and the Trojan Pride Committee budget from $1,500 to $1,600. 

Last week’s meeting revealed that USG had a total of $363,000 in available funds, with $262,500 allocated to programming organizations.