Students’ debate over Honors continues

With the change to the academic standards to Latin Honors, the graduating class of 2009 is taking a stance against the University’s policy.

The 2005 ruling by the University Senate is finally taking effect with the May 2009 class being the first class the new rules apply to.

With a petition carrying 411 signatures already in the mix, a Facebook group titled “Graduation Protest (You probably don’t even know this effects you)” has been created.

“We haven’t gone as far as a complete protest of graduation yet, but one of the things we might do is if we feel like nothing happened or no action is being taken by the administrators we might just when they call our name… rather then accepting the diploma, not shake hands, just walk by,” Khalid Srour, one of the leaders of the opposition, said.

According to Richard Vatz, mass communication and communication studies professor and acting member of the University Senate, the sudden disqualification of students with Latin Honors is of major significance.

“The attainment of cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude comes up all of the time in life, and to surprise students with the change in criteria is unjustifiable and serves no purpose that needs to be accomplished so quickly,” Vatz said in an e-mail.

Acting Provost Kate Denniston is new to this debate having taken office roughly two weeks ago. She has made a personal statement pointing out the flaws in the system.

“I can say personally, and this is not the view of the University or the senate, I think the new policy is flawed. I agree with the philosophy behind it that we need to have rigorous standards for honors, but I don’t think this is the right way to go about it,” Denniston said.

As far as the level of protesting students are willing to go to, Denniston says she hopes a decision will be made prior to that.

“You know, commencement is one of the most important ceremonies in our lives to most of us. I don’t want to see this come down to a choice not to be there. My daughter graduated in January 2008 and it was really special to me and I don’t want to see this come down to a decision of are we going to protest or not,” she said.

As far as Srour and co-organizer of the petition and Facebook group Mike Hollis are concerned, the ultimate goal is to go back to the old system of honors.

“We’re taking it step by step and getting as many TU students as we can and taking it to the SGA then through to the provost,” Srour said. “We are concentrating on the seniors who are graduating and then the sophomores and juniors because they are affected by this as well.”

Vatz advised the students to reason with the administration and acting provost before taking drastic action.

“[The acting provost] has shown intelligent initial understanding of the complainants’ views,” Vatz said in an e-mail.

Denniston urges students to understand that this decision was made four years ago and sanctioned by the University Senate. She has only been in office for 10 days and explains she is looking at this situation with “fresh eyes.”

Hollis’ argument consists of asking why students of the May 2009 class were not grandfathered into this in the first place.

“The spring semester of my junior year is when I first heard about it and I know people who, as soon as this semester, didn’t know about it. They said ‘no way is that true, I can’t believe they changed the facts halfway through,’” Hollis said. “They are giving us ridiculous standards that have to be met that no other college in the entire Maryland system is comparable to our school.”

According to Hollis, he has called other schools and the closest for the lowest level is 3.5, that’s the lowest requirement.

“Changing the basis of Latinate honors for students who entered under a catalogue which stated a pre-determined GPA as the basis is rewriting an implied contract, and it is unfair to change the rules in the middle of the game,” Vatz said in an e-mail.

According to Srour and Hollis, there has been an increase in the support of the faculty on campus, consisting of directors and professors from multiple majors.

“I am kind of shocked that despite the fact that it seems as though the majority of the people not just a smaller portion but a majority of the staff are in support of changing it back, they still haven’t done anything to make efforts to do that,” Hollis said.

There are currently 527 member of the “Graduation Protest (You probably don’t even know this effects you)” Facebook group.