Long Beach State does not plan to extend its credit or no credit option for the fall 2020 semester as it did in spring 2020, Associated Students, Inc. Senate announced at its meeting Wednesday.
While the ASI Senate and CSULB’s Academic Senate have both received inquiries from students about the topic, Jessica Pandya, chair of the CSULB Academic Senate, said that there haven’t been enough students requesting the option to justify an extension.
“We’re not extending credit [or] no credit,” Pandya said. “We haven’t heard more of a strong demand for it on our campus.”
The option allows students to receive “credit” or “no credit,” which does not affect their GPA, in place of a letter grade. The deadline for the option was extended to May 25 last semester, over a week after final exams, in response to COVID-19 and the sudden shift from in-person to online instruction.
University officials urged the ASI Senate to collect student feedback regarding credit or no credit to determine whether to extend the deadline for spring 2021, Pandya said.
“It can be brought back for the upcoming spring semester if there is enough student support,” said Isaac Julian, ASI academic affairs officer.
Julian encouraged students to share their thoughts “so that we can know that it is a need and a necessity and it’s something that students want.”
CSULB will also take student academic performance in fall 2020 into consideration when deciding whether to extend its credit or no credit policy for the upcoming spring semester.
The Senate also addressed student concerns that professors and administrators are not doing enough to address national and global issues ranging from the coronavirus pandemic to political turmoil and racial injustice.
Citlalli Ortiz, ASI chief diversity officer, said that some students feel that these topics aren’t being taken into account when coursework is assigned and that they aren’t given enough time or resources to process and cope with these issues.
She expressed student frustrations regarding the 2020 election and “the anxiety that it was causing for a lot of students and the fact that it wasn’t being addressed.”
“It feels like we never have a break regardless of what’s going on,” Ortiz said.
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