The new repeat policy incentivizes students to “run through the finish line" while contributing to more equitable outcomes.
Last week MSU announced that it would put in place a “new” repeat policy for undergraduates. I say “new” because the policy we adopted is actually a decade old, but it was never implemented. I’m very happy that we can (finally!) offer it.
The old repeat policy was designed to reduce pressure on high-demand courses, and it incentivized undesirable outcomes. For example, as the end of a semester approached and students found themselves having earned lower grades than they hoped (or needed for entry into competitive secondary-admission programs, graduate schools, or professional schools), they needed to ensure that they earned less than a 2.0 so they could retake the course. Anecdotes from students about intentionally “bombing” a final to fall below the 2.0 threshold are common. Many professors have described conversations with students who have pleaded with them to lower their final grades so they could retake the course.
In 2011, four Academic Governance committees and both ASMSU and COGS recommended a new repeat policy that would allow undergraduate students to repeat a course twice (for a total of three enrollments) with a 20-credit cap on total repeat credits. Then-Provost Wilcox endorsed the change but stated in his memo to campus that he chose to “indefinitely defer” its implementation because he worried that the new policy would create too much “demand on a set of courses which are already heavily subscribed, and courses where enrollment is limited because of required laboratory facilities.”
As the supply of seats was limited in some courses, Wilcox concluded, MSU needed a repeat policy that similarly constrained demand. So, to constrain demand, MSU’s old repeat policy prohibited students who earned 2.0 or higher in a class from retaking the course.
The new repeat policy incentivizes students to “run through the finish line,” to try their best to achieve a course’s learning outcomes and earn as high of a grade as possible every time they take the class. If they choose to retake the course, their prior efforts to earn the best grade possible can help them be better prepared for subsequent attempts, or they may find that the learning outcomes they achieve (and the grade they earn) in their first attempt was sufficient and they can proceed toward graduation without retaking the course.
When we began discussing reforms to the repeat policy, I heard – and myself expressed – a concern that the new repeat policy may further “privilege the already privileged” by creating a competitive advantage for the students who had the time and money to retake courses. That is, some worry that students who can afford – both in time and tuition – to retake key courses will be enabled to improve their grades and thus out-compete less-resourced students. As the new policy goes into effect, we will need to carefully watch to see who retakes courses, and which courses, both to make necessary future changes to the policy and to identify courses that need to be improved to better serve students’ needs.
That being said, I now believe that the newly implemented repeat policy is a much more equitable policy than the old one, and it is an important contribution to closing MSU’s opportunity gaps. Here’s why:
Although we firmly believe that every student MSU admits has the capacity to learn, thrive, and graduate, we also accept that students arrive to campus with a tremendous diversity of preparation, support, and experience. When we assume that every student is equally prepared to achieve a course’s intended learning outcomes in the same amount of time, equality precludes equity. Some students are prepared to achieve learning outcomes in 15 weeks, others will need more time. The old repeat policy reifies the inequities that existed prior to students starting at MSU by assuming that a standardized amount of time was appropriate for all students to equitably fulfill a course’s learning outcomes.
The old pass-repeatable/pass-non-repeatable policy also required a sophisticated set of institutional navigation skills for a student to know that they needed to fall below the repeatable threshold of 2.0. These skills are not equitably distributed among our students, so the old policy likely exacerbated opportunity gaps by privileging students whose preparation and support provided them with better institutional navigation skills.
A repeat policy that allows more opportunities for all students to demonstrate attainment of learning outcomes is inherently more equitable, especially for an institution that has such a diverse student body. It creates a more level playing field for students who seek secondary admission to competitive programs at MSU, and it allows MSU’s graduates the opportunity to be more competitive with peers from other institutions when they apply for post-graduate opportunities.
There will be challenges as we finally implement the “new” repeat policy. Among them is the availability of seats that concerned then-Provost Wilcox a decade ago. Two recent developments – the opening of the new STEM Teaching and Learning building and the massive investments we made in online course development during the pandemic – substantially increase MSU’s capacity to teach many of its most heavily subscribed courses. Just as with student outcomes under the new policy, we will have to closely monitor how the new policy impacts seat demand and make the necessary adjustments to ensure that all students have access to the classes they need to progress toward graduation.
Another important difference that has emerged over the last decade is found in MSU’s increasing investment in Student Success. Whereas the repeat policy implemented in 2011 reduced course demand by reducing students’ access to retaking classes, today we are committed to reducing students’ need to retake courses. Across campus, faculty have made fundamental reforms to key courses, which have simultaneously raised expectations and increased students’ success in these classes.
Some faculty have already begun considering ways in which they could craft courses that intentionally extend beyond the 15-week mark to allow a student more time to develop and demonstrate mastery. These classes would effectively eliminate the need for a student to retake a course by focusing attention on learning outcomes, rather than grades. Perhaps one day the very notion of repeating a class will be entirely discarded and a repeat policy will be unnecessary.
Our collective commitment to Student Success requires us to interrogate every policy, procedure, and practice at MSU to ensure that the university is redesigned to equitably support all our students. The implementation of the repeat policy that was recommended by Academic Governance in 2011 is – perhaps ironically – a leap into the future, and I thank everyone involved in making it happen!
Feedback and suggestions, especially from the MSU community, welcome at largent@msu.edu.