Mount Royal University has brought back the Covid pass or fail grade, which student can choose through the MyMRU website until May 2.
This option was first introduced to students at the start of the pandemic, during the winter 2020 semester.
Spirit River Striped Wolf, president of the Students Association of Mount Royal University, says this option was brought back to help alleviate students of stress related to moving online in the early weeks of the winter semester.
“That sense of having to go from, in-person to online, back to in-person again, that it’s just been a really overwhelming semester. This is a way for students to be able to have an option if they don’t feel that their letter grade will serve them well,” says Striped Wolf.
While this is a unique opportunity for students, it is important for them to be well informed about the influence it will have on their goals and progress in their degree by speaking with their academic advisors.
“It does have certain impacts on students, certain negative impacts in the sense that it may cause a student to not have the required course load that is needed,” says Striped Wolf.
Students are encouraged to speak with their advisors before making a decision to see what is best fit for their academic career moving forward. Wolf says the university is going to do its best to communicate with students who will benefit from the Covid pass or fail option.
The university has also released a FAQ webpage to help students understand the Covid pass fail.
Geri Gouglas, who works at the registrar office, says that the university is encouraging students who receive a C minus or less to opt-in for this option for GPA and future program reasons.
“Any student who has a C minus or higher, because there are impacts on prerequisites, there’s impacts on admission, there’s impacts on award eligibility, there’s impact on continuation in your program, meeting continuation requirements, those types of things,” Gouglas says.
Gouglas explains that this option can help ease the pressures of those students whose GPA is below the average.
After reviewing the options that work best for the student’s academic plans, students can then choose this option through the MyMRU website from April 19 to May 2.
“Once final grades start rolling in, students will be able to log into their MyMRU account and just review in the area where they review their grades on My MRU. There will be an option for that pass or fail. So it’s all automated within their MyMRU account. Once their final grade has been received, there’ll be an option associated with that. They can choose the pass fail option,” Gouglas explains.