The Student Government Senate passed a resolution to establish a provost’s list to recognize academic excellence among online students.
The resolution, which passed unanimously, was voted on at the Oct. 18 meeting of the Senate.
“Currently for regular LSU students we have the dean’s list and the president’s list as end of semester honors for people who get above a certain GPA and put in a certain number of hours,” said Calvin Feldt, a computer science junior and Senator for the College of Engineering. “LSU online students do not have that so we wanted to bring them something similar.”
The dean’s list recognizes students taking at least 12 credit hours who earn above a 3.5 GPA, while the president’s honor roll recognizes students taking at least 15 credit hours earning above a 4.0 GPA. According to Feldt, online students do not qualify for either list because of how their semesters are structured.
Kinesiology junior Gabby Farrar, a Senator for human sciences and education, said they wanted to find a way to recognize the academic achievements of online students.
“Just because you do it on the computer doesn’t mean you’re not working any less,” Farrar said.
Political science and political communications sophomore Emma Long, senator for University Center for Advising and Counseling, said online students’ semesters are structured in terms, with two terms being equivalent to one semester on campus.
Long said online students who maintain a 3.5 GPA or higher and who have completed two terms will be eligible to appear on the provost’s list if implemented. Long said that data should be pretty easy to track since the school’s already recording it.
“I think it would impact a lot of students who are doing well to be able to put that honor on a resume or anything like that is really helpful,” Long said. “Especially for the students that are already doing it and it might incentivize more students to succeed.”
Long said there won’t be an equivalent of the president’s honor roll; all online students who are above a 3.5 GPA will be on the provost’s list. She said it’s possible that in the future something equivalent to the president’s honor roll for online students could be formed.
According to Long, the administration has been very receptive to the idea so far and doesn’t expect much difficulty implementing the list. She said it should be fairly simple to implement, but the list probably won’t be in place until the 2023 spring semester.
Feldt said there was some question as to whether SG was authorized to pass this resolution, since online students are not officially represented in SG. However, he said that they were contacted by online students who said that they wanted the provost’s list to happen, so they moved forward with it.
Long said there’s been a push throughout this semester for SG to represent online students, adding that there were discussions about giving online students seats in the Senate. Ultimately, they decided against this due to the logistics of getting students who are not physically on campus to attend Senate meetings.
“If we have the power to make that change, we want to be able to help them,” Feldt said.
