Dear Colleagues,

      This Tuesday, April 19, at noon, Tom Apple and I will present to
the members of the Undergraduate Studies Committee a resolution which
would require students to achieve a minimum grade of C- in 100- and 200-
level courses used to satisfy prerequisites or specific course require-
ments for a major.  Below is a draft of the text of this resolution:

WHEREAS

    there has long been a university-wide requirement that all undergraduates
must pass English 110 with a minimum grade of C-,

AND

     the University Faculty Senate recently passed a university-wide
breadth requirement that requires all undergraduates to pass 12 credits
of courses in 4 different areas with a minimum grade of C-,

AND

     many colleges and individual departments have already imposed their
own requirements that specific courses which count toward satisfying
graduation requirements be passed with a minimum grade of C-,

AND

     it is important that students achieve more than merely a poor
understanding of basic material in elementary courses before proceeding
to take higher-level courses,

BE IT RESOLVED,

     that the University of Delaware adopt a uniform requirement that
all 100- and 200-level courses used to satisfy prerequisite course
requirements, or specific graduation requirements for a major, be passed
with a minimum grade of C-.


     Tom Apple and I look forward to having a good discussion of this
resolution with you at the meeting.  From our standpoint, the highest
priority should be ensuring that inexperienced undergraduates who get
only D's in prerequisite courses not proceed immediately to higher-
level courses, in which they probably will do no better or even worse,
and quite possibly flunk out of college.  Instead, they should retake
these basic courses, which are offered not just each spring and fall
semester, but also in winter and summer sessions, with the goal of
earning an A or a B in them, before proceeding to the higher-level
courses with a much more solid foundation than they had when they
got only D's in the basic courses.


     To assist your consideration of this motion, I have attached a file
which provides an extensive, though not comprehensive, list of minimum
grade requirements which already exist at the university, college,
and department levels.  The adoption of our resolution would make it
much easier for faculty and advisers to convey to our undergraduates
that just barely getting by with a D is just not good enough at our
university.


     I look forward to seeing all of you at the meeting Tuesday.

     Best regards,

     John Morgan