The Whitworthian

May 14th, 2008

Committee submits letter to President’s Cabinet

Members of a committee formed by ASWU to address the results of a recent constituency report submitted a letter to the President’s Cabinet today.

The constituency report commissioned April 30 polled 288 students about a decision by the financial aid office and dean of enrollment Fred Pfursich to reduce the minimum GPA requirement to maintain the academic scholarships to a 2.0 at the beginning of the semester. (See article “Financial aid, enrollment offices reduce GPA required to keep academic scholarships“)

The constituency report asked student how they felt about the change, whether they felt Whitworth’s academic reputation was affected, and if their own academic performance was affected.

A committee was formed at the May 7 meeting to write a letter to the President’s Cabinet discussing the results.

Here is the letter in full:

To the members of the Presidential Cabinet,

On April 30th, 2008, ASWU conducted a constituency report to see how students felt about the new merit-based scholarship GPA maintenance at Whitworth University.  Each of our twenty senators and representatives solicited the student body to find out its opinions on whether the new 2.0 GPA limit was a good idea or a bad move, and whether this change affected Whitworth’s desire to maintain a high academic reputation.  As a result of our findings, we found that 66% of the students said that this decision was generally a poor move for Whitworth.  In addition, we found that 72% of the students said that this lowering of the academic expectation for merit-based funds negatively affects Whitworth’s academic reputation.  Along with this, 9% of the students said it positively affected Whitworth’s reputation, 17% said there was no affect, and 2% were unsure.  Their main reasons for this were that it “affects Whitworth’s academic integrity, lowers standards, and lowers motivation for students to work hard.”  Students are concerned that the baseline for merit-based scholarships is the same as the standard required to graduate.  Even though students have a full understanding that these scholarships are based strictly on high school performance, they still believe that maintaining them should require an extra effort at a university level.  For the sake of the students that we represent, ASWU recognizes something should be done about this decision.

It is our understanding that one of the main reasons for this change was to give students a little bit of cushion and stress-relief as they conduct their studies.  However, our report found that students have several other motivations to study in addition to keeping scholarships.  In addition to maintaining scholarships, personal achievement, graduate school, and future career opportunities were also considered important reasons to strive for a higher GPA. Therefore, we disagree that students want or need an academic break in terms of a lower GPA standard for maintaining merit based scholarships.

We as students are concerned that the lowering of these standards interferes with the rigorous academic reputation towards which Whitworth University is striving.  In light of the recent change from Whitworth College to Whitworth University, we understand that one of the focuses has been on increasing academic rigor.  Therefore, this new decision detracts us from the pursuit of this goal.  While we acknowledge and deeply value Whitworth’s desire to serve students and their needs, we believe that this change will hurt students more than help them.  Students love and need generosity to help them learn and grow, but we have found that they value a quality reputation more than a personal break when it comes to scholarships.  We see this as a testament to the quality and desire of Whitworth students to maintain personal discipline and higher expectations as part of their educational experience.

In the short term, we recommend that the current scholarship requirements return to their previous level of 3.0 from the fall, 2007.  In addition, ASWU is more than willing to assign a few students to a committee next year to address the greater issue at hand.  We want to progress to the point where students can say that they value the community, personal atmosphere, and challenging academic environment.  These changes will help keep Whitworth on a path towards these goals; we are proud of the value of a Whitworth diploma, and it is our desire that future students will maintain the same feelings about our University.

 Sincerely,

The Associated Students of Whitworth University, 2008

*Please see attached constituency report*

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Inside the Chambers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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