Nicolas Goodman, vice provost for undergraduate education, asked the Faculty Senate Executive Committee for advice about whether it's necessary for the university to continue mailing grading reports to students' permanent addresses when students are able to access their grades through BIRD via a touch-tone phone.

Students also can obtain printouts of their grades from the Provost's Office, he said, and, effective next month, students will be able to get their grades on the World Wide Web.

Goodman estimated that the university would save about $12,000 per semester by not mailing grades, adding that "from an administrative and budgetary point of view, I think the argument is quite strong" against mailing grades.

Among those advising that students be consulted was Michael Ryan, associate dean in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. While many students may feel comfortable obtaining their grades via a telephone call or the Web, he noted, "You may find that a significant number of students feel, 'I pay this tuition, the least you can do is mail me my grades.'"

Reports used in various ways

He said students not only may share their grades with their parents, but use the grade report in a variety of ways, as though it were an official transcript.

"It's one thing to just look at 'numbers' and say 'it's costing us $12,000 and it's really unnecessary;' there is a culture and a habit and an expectation about how these things are used in reality and we want to be careful about making a sudden change," Ryan said.

Powhatan Wooldridge, associate professor of nursing, urged senators to consider the symbolic implications of the issue.

"Not mailing the grades out to students will symbolize another incidence of the university not caring," Wooldridge said.

And when considering the enormous number of mailings UB sends out to prospective students, "it may seem a little penny-wise and pound-foolish" not to mail grades, he added.

Kevin McCue, a representative of the Graduate Student Association, told senators that since grades usually are made available when students are away from campus-during the midsemester and summer breaks-students would incur costs by making what for many would be a long-distance telephone call to BIRD. And many students do not have access to the Web unless they are on campus, he said.

While her initial feeling was to support doing away with mailed reports, Maureen Jameson, associate professor of modern languages and literatures, said she was concerned that students feel they were consulted on the issue and that there was some sort of "fail-safe" back-up, such as a DARS report, to students' electronic records.

Jack Meacham, professor of psychology, suggested that students first be offered the option of not having their grades mailed to them in an attempt to determine the popularity of the idea.

Mid-semester grades proposed

Faculty Senate Chair Peter Nickerson, professor of pathology, referred the issue to the senate's Committee on Grading, chaired by Thomas Schroeder, associate professor of learning and instruction.

Goodman also asked the grading committee to examine the feasibility of having some selected students-possibly those experiencing their first semester at UB-receive mid-semester grades in some courses.

These grades would help identify early those students who are in academic trouble, Goodman said, although he admitted it likely would be more work for faculty members who would have to provide the grades.

"If we have some early warning that this particular student is not doing well in this particular course, then we can use that information to intervene," possibly by offering tutoring or talking to the student about his or her study habits, he said.

Dennis Malone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, pointed out that the Division of Athletics has been involved in such a project for a long time and it's proven to be very helpful for the athletes.

In other business, senators:

- Heard a request for advice from Barry Eckert, dean of the School of Health Related Professions and chair of the 1997 SEFA campaign, on whether it would encourage giving at the university to publish the names of those contributing at certain levels to the campaign. Some senators favored the idea, while others worried about confidentiality issues.

- Heard a presentation by Good-man on preliminary enrollment figures for the fall semester.

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