UA discusses changes to course drop policies

As finals draw closer, the Undergraduate Assembly had academics on its mind at its last general body meeting of the semester Sunday night.

Among other actions, the UA passed a resolution to support changes in University-wide course drop policies. Currently, Penn allows students to drop courses until mid-October.

The policy may be altered to ensure that students have received at least one graded assignment before the drop deadline passes.

College sophomore and Daily Pennsylvanian columnist Dan Bernick expressed concern that professors may pile up exams in the days leading up to the drop deadline if the University acts on the UA’s resolution.

College sophomore and UA secretary Will Smith, a former DP copy assistant, however, did not share Bernick’s concern.

Smith said his exams and assignments are already clustered together and that he would not mind if Penn changed its drop-deadline policy.

College freshman and UA representative Joyce Kim, who co-authored the resolution with Smith, believes students may benefit from having a grade to predict their future course performance before the drop deadline passes. College junior and UA treasurer Jake Shuster also suggested extending the pass-fail deadline — which allows students to receive either “Pass” or “Fail” in a course in place of a letter grade.

UA representatives also discussed issues students may face when taking make-up finals. College and Wharton sophomore and UA associate member Chaitanya Jayanti, who initiated the discussion, said students sometimes face the “inconvenience” of having make-up exams after holidays. Members suggested ways to allow students to take their exams before holidays begin.

“I definitely think this should be a very large-scale project,” said College junior Erich Reimer, another UA associate member.

During the meeting, Engineering junior and UA representative Matt Rosenberg also suggested including a new email notification system for Penn InTouch to indicate course openings.

Students would sign up to receive notifications when certain courses have openings. “I definitely support this idea and don’t see why we wouldn’t want to do it,” said Wharton senior and UA Vice President Faye Chang.

UA members also discussed Penn’s relationship with PNC Bank. PNC has been linked to the practice of mountaintop removal mining, which involves the use of explosives to remove mountaintops to obtain coal.

College junior Pallavi Podapati, a non-UA member present at the meeting, brought up the issue. She said she hopes to talk to the administration “in full” about Penn’s relationship with PNC.

Bernick also wished to gauge fellow UA members’ support for changing Penn’s name, a cause that 1992 College graduate Noam Harel and 1992 Engineering graduate Kenneth Lesch are championing through an online petition.

“I think we should keep [the name] — I’m happy with it,” said Bernick. No UA members disagreed with him.

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