In 1871 the faculty committee on marks worked out a detailed system of recording and averaging daily grades ranging from zero to five, with a zero for every unexcused average. In 1878 the faculty voted that any student “whose combined work shall fall below 2.50 or whose examination shall fall below 2.0 shall be conditioned.” Any student who did not make up the condition within four weeks could not advance with the class.
In 1921 the faculty adopted a “credit unit” system under which a term grade of 95-100 would be credited with four units, 85-94 would yield three credit units, 75-84 would equal two credit units, and each term grade of 65-74 would receive one credit unit. Letters (A, B, C, and D) were used to denote the credit units earned. Under this system, for each term grade of “condition” or “incomplete,” no credit units would be awarded; and for each term grade of “drop,” minus one credit would be awarded. No student was allowed to graduate who did not have an average of two credit units for each term offered to satisfy the requirements of graduation.
In 1933 a new credit system was applied to students graduating in August 1934. The new system required that each student offer at least twice as many quality credits as the number required for graduation, counting A—4 credits; B—3 credits; C—2 credits; D—1 credit; and multiplying the number of quality credits that the grade carried by the number of hours of credit received for the course. In 1940 the faculty voted that a student must have a C average in order to become a junior.
In December 1980, effective for fall quarter 1981, the Faculty Senate voted to adopt B+ and C+ grades. A grade of B+ would be tabulated as a 3.5 and a C+ as 2.5 when grade point averages were tabulated. In 2007, effective for fall semester 2008, a new grading system was adopted by the Faculty Senate for implementation in undergraduate course work in fall 2008 that calculated an A as 4.0, an A- as 3.7, a B+ as a 3.3, a B as 3.0, a B- as 2.7, a C+ as 2.3, a C 2.0, a C- as 1.7, and a D as 1.0. In March 2008 the Graduate Council declined to adopt the new scale for graduate level course work.