Commencement and Academic Convocation Student Speaker Criteria

Do you know someone who would be the perfect Academic Convocation Student Speaker? Do you realize that all of the fun and interesting people at UPS dont have a 3.5 GPA? We want to make a change in the requirements. Please help.

Everyone at UPS embarks on a different path to get to graduation day. Some take easy classes and some take hard classes. Some excel at sciences while others excel at social studies. There are musicians, artists, and thespians. Each of us learns differently and at different rates. Clearly, each student is not the same.

After attending UPS for four years, we can all see the dramatic differences between professors and classes. We have all taken a class where the professor will not give out an A. We have all taken easy classes just to fulfill a core. Two students taking the same class from different professors can be subjected to different grading scales, different tests, different information, and different learning styles. The use of an all-encompassing grading system to compare things that are so different is not reflective of the effort or amount of work that a student puts into his/her studies. We should not use this archaic grading system to determine who among us is most qualified to deliver the speech that will culminate our UPS career.

Those of us below wish to eliminate the GPA requirement from the Criteria for Student Speakers (gpa of 3.50 or above, as of fall semester 2004). We feel that the ability to take easy classes does not qualify one student over any other student to deliver this speech. We also feel that ever member of the Senior class should have an equal opportunity to deliver the speech and that that students academic record, involvement, popularity, and charisma should speak for themselves.