Dean's list standards to be raised at SEMO

By next fall, Southeast Missouri State University students will have a more difficult time being recognized on the Dean's Honor List.

They will be required to maintain a grade-point average of 3.75 or above, earn B's or higher and have no failing grades in credit-only and pass/fail courses. The summer session also will be removed from consideration.

Provost Dr. Bill Eddleman said at least some decline is inevitable when the new system takes effect.

"There will probably be some change, and when you consider in some colleges that over 10 percent of students in a given semester were getting a 4.0, I'm not sure if it will have a whole lot of effect, but I know it will have some effect," he said.

During the 2013-2014 school year, 5,087 students were named to the Dean's Honor List at Southeast, with 2,583 students named in fall 2013 and 2,504 students in the spring 2014.

Eddleman said the Council of Deans, which comprises the provost, vice provost and all of the university's deans, made the decision to raise the standards.

Current requirements for the dean's list include completing at least 12 credit hours per semester with a grade-point average of 3.5 higher and no grade below a C, according to the university's website. Courses such as pass/fail, credit only and developmental do not count toward the required hours.

The change in standards will make Southeast's GPA requirement one of the highest in the region, ahead of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Murray State University in Kentucky and Missouri State University in Springfield, all of which require only a 3.5 GPA.

Dr. Gerald McDougall, dean of the College of Business, attributed the council's changes to not seeing the summer session as a sufficient academic experience and to wanting to make the dean's list more prestigious.

"There were an increasing number of students that were being eligible for that list, and in that manner it became less and less distinctive," McDougall said. "And we, as deans, really wanted to highlight our brightest and best students for that particular term, fall or spring, and we looked at the criteria and decided they weren't quite what we wanted, so we proposed the changes."

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