Camosun College is reassessing its grade-appeal process with an eye on human-rights issues after three nursing students successfully had their failing grades appealed.
The students took their grade appeals to Camosun vice president of education John Boraas after being denied by their instructor, department head, and faculty dean. Boraas says the college’s existing appeal process focuses on academics, but he says he was obligated to consider the context of human rights in this situation.
“For a student who has grounds under human rights—and, in this case, sexualized violence falls under that—any of those things require us to act in ways that predict as to whether or not the experience of the student could arguably have been tampered by the experience they had,” says Boraas. “If someone is assaulted, indeed, I would argue that that is something that would interrupt learning and, arguably, they would have done better had that not happened.”
Boraas says that government policy demands new behaviour on the part of the college when it comes to student grade appeals.
“The province mandated a policy on sexualized violence and misconduct and in it, what they’ve mandated is that if someone suffers an assault that institutions have a responsibility to help keep them whole,” says Boraas.
In other words, says Boraas, it is assumed that an incident would have an impact on a student’s ability to be successful. However, Boraas says he can not speak to specifics in this particular situation.
“I absolutely can’t speak to the grounds for the appeal,” says Boraas. “All I can do is give a general assertion that we’re dealing with this new environment of different legislation that demands we behave somewhat differently than we have in the past.”
The three students were allowed to move to the next level of the course in question, and underwent three hours of tutoring a week on top of class time. Boraas says that there are many protections within the program to make sure students develop the skills they need.
“We added in the support piece to ensure as much as humanly possible that the students are given that opportunity to make up any deficits,” says Boraas.
Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) student services coordinator Michael Glover says the CCSS has wanted to see the college address their appeal process for some time.
“It’s certainly something that we’ve been interested in and pushing for—a revamp of that very old policy,” says Glover. “We certainly have a lot of experience with it in practice, and it could be better for students in a lot of ways because, in practice, it’s outdated. It doesn’t cover everything. It’s time for a revamp.”
Boraas says everybody who has been involved in Camosun policy development, as well as “a much broader cross-section” of people, will be invited into the policy development conversation.
“We’ll rebuild that so everybody kind of has a transparent understanding of what the process should be, rather than it being me doing my best to navigate an existing policy that isn’t as up to date as it should be,” says Boraas. “You’ll see a policy development communication coming out soon.”