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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Alright, Jared. Yes, Rob. You have an interesting article
Jared:I do.
Rob:That you wanna do a coffee drop on.
Jared:Dated 08/06/2026. Here's a headline. This is from The Hill. University of Michigan to nicks letter grades for many first semester students. Let me read some of this to you, shall I?
Jared:Yeah. University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science and Arts will get rid of final letter grades for first semester students starting in fall twenty twenty seven. The college unveiled the change on its website saying it will designate all first year LSA students, that's literature, science and arts, with passed or no credit on their first semester transcripts. Those students will still receive letter grades and feedback from instructors, the announcement noted. The change is intended to help first term students establish early momentum and curve the mental health crisis unfolding, unquote, among college students.
Jared:Wow. Here's some more. Our goal, this is another quote, our goal is to help first year students acclimate to the demands of college and allow intrinsic motivations, they're something we've talked about, to guide personally meaningful academic journeys, core elements of a liberal arts and science education. They can explore a subject that may not come easily to them or take a course in a new field without the fear that a low grade may have long term consequences. Here's some stats.
Jared:Eighteen percent of college students report severe depression symptoms in the twenty twenty four-twenty five Healthy Minds Study, which is administered by the Healthy Minds Network at Michigan's flagship university, marking the third straight year of decline. All first year LSA students will be enrolled in the program with the college noting an opt in program would defeat the purpose of facilitating students transition to campus, supporting their mental health and motivating them to learn. If covered grades are optional, covering an individual's grades will inadvertently become equated with them not doing well in a class.
Rob:Thoughts? Well, I mean, at first blush, it seems great for learning. I just wonder if, I mean, they're they're responding to their own study Mhmm. Which, again, I don't know how valid that is. I haven't looked at it, so that's not fair for me to say one way or the other.
Rob:Obviously, they think it's important or they wouldn't have made this what some would see as a drastic change. It almost feels like a pushback to COVID days.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:You know, you remember here at Cedarville, we had we had something similar where we had pass fail.
Jared:I I think advantage of that.
Rob:Think fact I think faculty were encouraged to use that because I there was a sincere concern that it would cause some to have a significant amount of anxiety, especially if their GPA was key to their life plan or I've seen students like that where to have anything less than a four point o is tantamount to failure in life. Mhmm. While you and I know that's not accurate nor is it wise, it's still a reality that I think some many students live in. I'd be interested to see how it you know, what the results are. Like, do they actually get students who own their own learning and accelerate beyond, you know, just doing things, jumping through the hoops to actually owning their learning and going beyond coursework.
Jared:Yeah, I thought it was interesting that it's a kind of a, they see it as a way of allowing students to explore. But what's interesting is they're still doing letter grades and feedback from instructors. It's just the final grade on the transcript is credit or no credit. And they're still internally keeping the grades for things like financial aid and compliance and athletic eligibility
Rob:I and stuff like was wondering about that too. That makes sense because then there are certain things that they just can't get around. Right. And sports eligibility would be one of those.
Jared:I guess it's more of just trying to protect the transcript. I'm not sure.
Rob:I don't know. Yeah. There's a question. Will it actually do that at the end of the day? Yeah.
Rob:And does it actually I could see an argument where people would say faculty might say noble what you're doing, but at the end of the day, you're actually making things harder because at some point they're going to have to transition to competition based placement.
Jared:So the other questions I have that aren't in here and how does it affect their GPA? It wouldn't. But it doesn't shows up as credit, no credit. So it's a full
Rob:I don't credit know.
Jared:Would need to talk with a registrar. It depends on the because if they're keeping grades, the instructor's still keeping the grades. They're still able to see the grades, but doesn't show up in the transcript as that, then it's like you got a credit, wink, but your GPA is two points eight and you've only taken one semester. Yes, you passed, but it wasn't a good, not good pass or bad pass. Maybe that's why they're trying I don't know.
Jared:I'm just trying to figure this out myself.
Rob:Well, I think it makes sense on the liberal arts side because they the power of the liberal arts, least one of the one of the bonuses or one of the strengths of the liberal arts is that it helps you move in between different subjects. So I would argue that one of the major, not the only, but one of the major things you learn in the liberal arts is a philosophical process of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Jared:Right.
Rob:And you can bring that from many different areas into other areas of study, even hard sciences. So it's essentially problem solving is one way you could also think of it. Simplified, I understand, but still very much necessary in many different fields. Maybe they're trying to come at it where there's a low stakes and encouraging and hoping that students will catch an internal drive when they see that it helps them. I don't know.
Jared:Yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out the intrinsic motivation side of this myself because the assumption is that eliminating these grades on the transcript will intrinsically motivate them to personalize
Rob:their motivated by then?
Jared:Doing things they love, which is why you go to you know, is why you pick a major because there's some sort of intrinsic motivation already behind that.
Rob:A lot of times it's money.
Jared:Yeah. But like
Rob:Like a job and money.
Jared:But even like we've talked about before, then the book that Chantal, Levesque, Bristol, and other authors wrote. You can't really intrinsically motivate someone. You can't stoke that fire. Either they have it or they don't. So how is this going to help with that if they don't have it already inside them?
Rob:Think there are opportunities. Reducing the friction that they think grades are causing mentally will give them headroom to potentially be motivated or inspired. Mean, you're not sitting there worrying about a grade, then maybe your mind opens up to possibilities and your curiosity comes back. Because what drives motivation is curiosity in in some to some degree, at least in my perspective.
Jared:You could stay home and be curious. You don't have to spend money to be curious.
Rob:It does help.
Jared:I went from like kind of being in favor of this to hating this in the span of what, six minutes?
Rob:I don't I'm not either way. I'm curious. I'm ultimately curious as to what it's going to do to students.
Jared:We just had a discussion with our students. Four and a half in the room were in favor of it. Josh was the only one that was like, It'd have to be universally accepted. So it wouldn't look weird on your transcript when your future employer's like, are there five or six passing on your transcript and not actual letter grades? Well, I was part of this program at University of Michigan.
Jared:No. I don't know, Michigan's doing something right. They've got 19,000 undergrads, so three thousand five hundred and twenty one first year students enrolled.
Rob:Let's be honest, how many of them go just because they live in Michigan and they're Wolverines?
Jared:Well, if they're actual Wolverines, they shouldn't be going to a college.
Rob:Unless unless they're, like, the Wolverine. You know? They're not. Metal.
Jared:Doubt it. Flaws. I doubt it.