After two years of discussion, project team administrators, team leads and faculty advisors have begun a phase-out period of the letter grading system for project team credit courses. These changes to the project team academic framework were approved and project team members were notified late in the Spring 2024 semester.
Project teams are an undergraduate-run program where students gain real-world experience by collaborating on technical computer science and engineering projects. Project team members can build and design robots in Combat Robotics @ Cornell, implement sustainable water treatment technologies in Aguaclara, restore and race off-road vehicles in Cornell Baja Racing and much more.
Members enroll in three courses that count for credit in the Student Project Teams Program. All students involved in project teams enroll in ENGRG 3400: Engineering Student Project Teams after completing ENGRG 1400: Project Team Onboarding, an orientation course for new members. Members who want to graduate into team leadership roles must then complete ENGRG 4400: Project Team Leadership.
In previous years, students had the choice of a letter grade or satisfactory/unsatisfactory grading system for the ENGRG 3400 course. Now, all courses are S/U, meaning that grades earned in project team courses will not be factored into their Grade Point Averages.
Project team administrators, faculty advisors and members of the College Curriculum Governing Board, the council responsible for the College of Engineering core curriculum and degree requirements, approved these changes to the academic framework in a May 24 vote. One month later, project team members received an email from Lauren Stulgis, the Swanson director of Student Project Teams, informing them of the new grading system to be implemented in the 2024-2025 academic year.
In this email, Stulgis wrote that “The majority of input leaned toward S/U only grading for ENGRG 3400, in part because advisors report that their ability to supervise students’ work and assign letter grades is not at the level of academic courses or individual projects, raising concerns about the extent to which grading continues to be largely student-led.”
Now, project teams must adapt to the recent grading changes.
“Without the ‘incentive’ for credit for their work reflected in their GPAs, some students may be less inclined to remain on their project team,” wrote Sweksha Mehta ’27, the Aguaclara recruitment chair, in an email statement to The Sun. “And for future applicants, some may be less inclined to apply.”
Michael Constant ’25, team lead of Cornell iGEM, anticipates a potential decline in motivation among project team members in the absence of letter grades.
Constant said that in response to the changes, team leadership “will likely have to implement new means to maintain high motivation within the team and recruit harder to combat any lost interest in students who are choosing work, research or classes over project teams due to the loss of the graded credit.”
iGEM polled the reactions of their new recruits from the Fall 2024 application cycle. According to Constant, “When asked which [grading system] they prefer, they mentioned they would have liked to have the grading option.”
1,885 students applied to Cornell University Project Teams in Fall 2024, a 10-percent increase from the previous year, according to Stulgis. The new batch of project team members will be introduced to the recent grading changes.
Despite some negative feedback from project team leadership, Stulgis affirmed that the new grading scheme will bring benefits to students.
”The flexibility afforded by the new grading scheme will enable us to lean into working with team leads and members to ensure that all of our participants are developing meaningful leadership skills,” Stulgis said.
Jane Haviland ’28 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].