Undergraduate students from 10 Arts & Humanities departments received an email confirming a change to the ‘safety net’ policy applied to grades effected by COVID-19. The affected departments are Classics, Comparative Literature, English, Film Studies, History (including honours joint with Modern Languages), Liberal Arts, Music, Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies.
The revised policy
These departments have chosen to use exclusively a student’s average from their previous year as a benchmark which this year’s grade average cannot fall below. This deviates from the College-wide policy announced in an email to students on April 3 (over a month earlier). Previously it was said that the ‘safety net’ would be calculated on the basis of an average from current year grades submitted before March 15.
The revised policy
This will benefit students whose grade average was higher in previous years but will clearly disadvantage those for whom this is not the case. Some have expressed dissatisfaction with the choice to reverse the policy and question the basis on which this was justified. A petition against this change in policy has already been created.
Masters students have expressed a similar concern regarding a separate change to the post-graduate ‘safety net’ policy.
Roar has reached out to the University and KCLSU for clarification on the matter and further asked to what extent this affects students in other departments.
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