SIMON F R A S E R UNIVERSITY 

MEMORANDUM 

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AS

DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES 

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jL4

TO:

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Registrar 

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FROM: B.P. Clayman 

SUBJECT: GRADE DEFERRALS 

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DATE: 23 June 1987 

Action taken at the meeting of the Senate Graduate 

Studies Committee on 22 June 1987 leads to the following 

motion: 

MOTION: ? 

The Graduate Regulation 1.5.1, paragraph four, 

be changed from: 

In exceptional circumstances, the grade for 

a course may be deferred. This shall be 

entered as DE in the student's record. If the 

grade is not received by the Supervisor of 

Graduate Studies by the last day for 

submitting grades in the next semester, the DE 

grade will automatically be converted to an 

F. When the grade for a course is not 

deferred and no grade is received by the 

Supervisor-Graduate Studies, the notation N 

will be placed in the student's record. For 

the purposes of calculating the CGPA, N counts 

for 0 points. 

New: 

Rationale: 

In exceptional circumstances, the grade for 

a course may be deferred. This shall be 

entered as DE in the student's record. If the 

grade is not received by the Supervisor of 

Graduate Studies by the end of the third 

week 

of the next semester, the DE grade will 

automatically be converted to an F. When the 

grade for a course is not deferred and no 

grade is received by the Supervisor-Graduate 

Studies, the notation N will be placed in the 

student's record. For the purposes of 

calculating the CGPA, N counts for 0 points. 

6jot. 

This motion, which stemmed from discussions at 

the Faculty of Arts G.S.C., removes what a large 

majority of the S.G.S.C. see as major inequities 

in the present grading system. The S.G.S.C. 

considered, but ultimately rejected arguments, 

that differences among disciplines required 

departmental autonomy in permitting grade 

deferrals of up to one full semester. A lengthy 

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B.P. Clayman 

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discussion focussed on equity in evaluating 

students' performance in coursework. It was 

felt that comparing the work that one student 

produces over the normal 13 week semester with 

that produced by another over the possible 32 

weeks of a full semester and a full semester of 

extension is simply not fair. In addition, 

evaluation of the work that one student turns in 

many weeks after the other students was argued 

to be difficult, if not impossible, to do 

equitably. 

The committee recognized and accommodated 

the need for more flexibility in this area for 

graduate students than for undergraduates by 

allowing grade deferral up to 3 weeks into the 

next semester, rather than the one week allowed 

for undergraduates. In fact, a range from one 

to

six

weeks was considered. 

The objection that the amount of work.that 

some course instructors required of their 

students was more than could be accomplished in 

one semester was rejected. It was argued that 

instructors should have reasonable expectations 

of their students, and that, if more work than 

can be done in one semester is required, the 

course should be split into two. It was also 

seen as unfair to expect students to carry 

forward Qbrk into a new semester where it 

competed for their time with work from courses 

taken in the new Semester. 

Although I did not initiate this change in the 

regulations, it is fully consistent with my goals as Dean 

in that it promotes greater equity in grading and 

encourages more expeditious completion of graduate 

degrees; I give it my strongest support. 