Department of Anthropology (March 11, 1974) (Revised: November 7, 1975) (Reaffirmed June, 1992) Students who feel that they have received an unfair or improper grade in an Anthropology course, and who wish to seek redress, should follow these procedures. Each step should be taken within no more than two weeks of the previous step. Within two weeks of receiving the grade, the student should seek an appointment with his/her professor in order to give the professor a chance to explain the basis upon which the grade was conferred and to give the student an opportunity to point out any apparent errors or misjudgments. If no change in grade results from this meeting, and if the student wishes to appeal the grade, the student should state the nature of his/her grievance in a letter to the Chairman of the Undergraduate Affairs Committee (in the case of an undergraduate) or to the Chairman of the Graduate Affairs Committee (in the case of a graduate student). If the chairman of the committee is the person who conferred the grade in question, however, the letter should be addressed to a different faculty member of the committee. The Chairman, or other faculty member, will then arrange, at a mutually convenient time, a second informal meeting between the student and the professor. The Committee Chairman or other faculty member will attend this meeting and a new attempt will be made to reconcile the differences between the instructor and the student. If no reconciliation emerges from the informal meeting, the student's petition will be considered by the entire committee. The student will be required to supply all written work he/she did for the course and that has been returned to him/her. The course instructor must provide any of the student's written material that had not been returned. The committee may request additional relevant data from either party. When all documents have been assembled, the entire membership of the relevant committee (Undergraduate or Graduate Affairs), including its student members, will hold a formal hearing. The chairman of the committee will inform the student, in writing, of the time and place of the hearing. The student and instructor will both have the right to present their respective cases in person at the hearing and to hear each other's statements. After hearing the evidence, the committee may do one of two things: It may recommend that the grade be changed. In this case, a statement will be drafted stating the reasons for the recommendation, and specifying the recommended new grade. The committee recommendations need not be limited to raising the grade. If, after careful consideration, the committee decides that the professor has given too high a grade, it may recommend that the grade be lowered. It may judge the original grade to have been reasonable. In this case a statement shall be drafted stating that an appeal had been made and stating the reasons for the rejection of the appeal. The statement shall be entered into the student's file as a permanent part of his/her record. If the committee feels that the grade should be changed, the procedure to be followed will depend upon whether or not the professor has waived his/her exclusive right to determine his/her grades. The case of a professor who has not waived his/her exclusive right to determine his/her student's grade. If the committee finds that the instructor has not acted fairly or properly, it should attempt to persuade the instructor to change the grade. Should this attempt prove unsuccessful, the committee may then determine if some alternative action is acceptable, e.g., allowing the student to drop the course, permitting the course to be expunged from the record, or consenting to awarding partial credit for the course. If all attempts fail and if the committee remains convinced that the student has been unfairly or improperly graded, the committee shall prepare a letter setting forth its views of the instructor's conduct and place the letter as a matter of record in the department's grievance file and in the instructor's file. Copies of the letter will be prepared for the student and for the student's file. The case of a professor who has waived his/her exclusive right to determine his/her student's grades. If the committee finds that the instructor has not acted fairly or properly, it should determine whether the instructor is willing to change his/her grade, or if some alternative action is acceptable, e.g., allowing the student to drop the course, permitting the course to be expunged from the record, or consenting to awarding partial credit for the course. If the instructor remains unwilling to alter the grade and if the committee remains convinced that the student has been treated unfairly or improperly graded, the committee shall have, in such cases, the right to alter the grade in spite of the objections of the instructor. Whatever the determination of the committee, a written report stating what procedures were followed and what decision was reached will be sent to the LS&A Office of Student Academic Affairs within two weeks after the conclusion of the hearing. There shall be no further hearing of the matter within the department. Grounds Upon Which Grades Might Be Changed An unjust grade should be changed. There can be no dispute on this matter. Neither a clerical error, nor a capricious or biased professorial judgment should be allowed to remain as part of the student's permanent record. In such cases, students need, and deserve, a means of redress, and it is to provide this redress that this grade appeal procedure is established. Nevertheless, it should also be stated that in the overwhelming majority of cases the professor of the course is, by far, the most qualified person to make the judgment that lies behind the conferral of a grade. The Department of Anthropology takes this opportunity to reaffirm its confidence in the qualifications and in the good judgment of its faculty, and to reaffirm the traditional policy that confers responsibility for providing a grade upon the professor of the course. The committee that is called upon to hear an appeal by a student must acknowledge that it cannot possibly share the professor's familiarity with the subject matter of the course or with the specific materials used in it. It must also acknowledge that there is an inevitable minimum of imprecision in grading, and that the difference between a C+ and a B-, for instance, is hardly one that can, or should, become a matter for detailed litigation. The committee, in judging a single case, cannot know the range of excellence of the students in the class, and it should be cautious about raising the grade of one individual, lest it thereby diminish the apparent achievements of other students who may have done better and whose original grade may have been higher. For all these reasons, students contemplating appeals should be warned that the review committees will not, and must not, place their judgment over that of the professor involved except in clear cases. The burden of proof in challenging a grade once given must rest on the student. In all cases of a reasonable doubt, the grade once given will be approved. Did you find what you were looking for? If not, please email us at SAA.Webmaster@umich.edu. 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