Marshall faculty plans grade change investigation
November 3, 2009 ·
Marshall University’s faculty senate is in the early stages of investigating grade changes involving state Treasurer John Perdue’s daughter Emily, but they’re not exactly sure what happens next.
Professor Laura Wyant presented a petition with 42 faculty signatures to the executive committee Monday asking them to investigate.
The grades in question are for Emily Perdue in two independent study courses last spring.
Wyant says Education Dean Rosalyn Templeton improperly removed her as Perdue’s instructor and took over the grading herself. Wyant said Perdue and his wife both met with faculty and administration officials before the change was made.
Marshall University Academic Provost Gayle Ormiston says he’s looked into the matter and there was no wrongdoing and that coursework was completed over the summer.
Marshall Faculty Senate Chair Camilla Brammer says this investigation is something new.
“We’re going to meet again and we’ve got some preliminary things that we want to get done, but this is something that we’ve never had to do before, so it’s something that’s kind of day by day,” Brammer said.
Brammer says the executive committee doesn’t know what it will do with the findings.
“That’s the part that at this state that is really pretty unclear because we don’t know where this is going to take us. It was pretty open ended as to what the faculty petition was asking for,” Brammer said.
She says at the next faculty senate meeting in November they will form a committee to look into the process involved for a grade change or instructor of record change.
“I will charge the budget and academic policy committee to look at that process. There seems to be a reporting thing, a form, we’re not sure what yet, whether it’s a form or whether it's signatures that need to be done in that long process of getting a grade changed or a professor of record changed,” Brammer said.
Brammer says the executive committee wants to get this resolved soon.
“It is the desire of the faculty executive committee to get this process done as quickly as possible. We don’t want this hanging over our heads or for the faculty members, so that we can get the information that we may gather and get this to some resolution."
Brammer says at this point there will be no outside help in the investigation.