OREM — Utah Valley University’s administration earlier this month reversed a decision of its math department to downgrade the transfer of credit of a BYU college algebra course.

After appeals from students (including a petition) and a local tutoring company, UVU officials conducted some institutional research on the two math courses and the subsequent proficiency of UVU students who had taken the BYU course and the approximate UVU equivalent, Math 1050.

The results of the studies indicated that the two math courses were roughly comparable and that there was no significant performance differences from the two groups of students who had taken the BYU and UVU college algebra courses, said Trevor Tooke, UVU’s student body president.

“We wanted this to continue to be transferable,” he said.

On March 11, an e-mail was sent out to UVU counselors announcing that BYU’s Math 110 would again transfer to UVU as Math 1050 credit.

But not everyone agrees with reversal, including the former math department chairwoman who elected to make the credit transfer change last fall. Carolyn Hamilton stepped down from the math department chair position on March 11. She said her decision to step down from the math chair position was partially due to the hailstorm that ignited over her decision to downgrade the Math 110 transfer credit.

Chris Taylor, UVU spokesman, said there are some inconsistencies between BYU’s Math 110 and UVU’s Math 1050. But he added that the two universities are part of a larger system and that the credit transfer of the BYU course is critical to the success of UVU students.

“In order for us to remain as consistent as we can with our sister institution, we’re going back to accepting this particular credit,” Taylor said. “Our No. 1 consideration is our students. At the end of the day we want to provide a good, seamless transfer experience for our students.”

Back in November, the math department announced it was downgrading the transfer credit of BYU’s Math 110 college algebra correspondence course that UVU students were enrolling in to fulfill a general graduation requirement.

Jared Zemp, operations officer for tutoring service Ology, and students asserted at the time that the math department’s action was punitive against students enrolled in Ology’s Math 110 tutoring class, and against the company itself. He said it was a faster and more cost-effective way for UVU students to fulfill their general education math requirement.

“We’re so happy the administration manned up and did the right thing,” Zemp said.

After getting bombarded with student calls and e-mails after the change was announced, Tooke said he spoke to UVU Vice President Elizabeth Hitch, who is over academic affairs. Some time after that, Hitch initiated the research to either validate or invalidate the math department’s decision.

Hamilton said there were several legitimate reasons for adjusting the transfer of the Math 110 credit. BYU’s course is a three-credit class where UVU’s Math 1050 is a four-credit class, she said. Hamilton added that while UVU checks math pre-requisites, BYU does not.

Though most state universities also offer the Math 1050 class, not even the University of Utah’s three-credit college algebra course transfers to UVU as Math 1050 credit, she said. A fact working against Hamilton’s decision is that BYU’s Math 110 transfers to other public universities and colleges in Utah as Math 1050 credit.

Hamilton doesn’t believe the institutional research the administration conducted definitely shows that Math 110 and Math 1050 are comparable courses. It examined 844 UVU students transferring the BYU course. While all but two student passed, only 69 students, or 8 percent, enrolled in subsequent math courses.

“The data, as far as I’m concerned, is so small it’s inconclusive,” she said. “There’s a policy loophole that makes it look like you have a bad program, and that’s frustrating,” she said. Students “are bypassing UVU policies and bypassing UVU expectations.”

Tyler Jarvis, chairman of BYU’s math department, said he was surprised when UVU initially said it was going to devalue the transfer of Math 110 beginning in January. He said the course was restructured four years ago specifically to ensure it was on par with college algebra courses offered at other universities around the nation.

“When UVU decided not to accept the credit, we looked [into it] and found no significant differences in the content,” Jarvis said. “I didn’t get an explanation from them that I felt was a good explanation.”

Hamilton said, in a sense, the BYU loophole is creating two tiers of UVU students — those who adhere to the math placement test recommendations and work to build up their math skills to where they should be at the college level, and those who come in under the radar through Math 110 and haven’t developed any of the comparable math skills as their peers.

It’s not that she doesn’t see the appeal to students and administrators of the alternative. She simply doesn’t believe it’s giving them the math foundation that they need as part of their general education university experience.

“If you pay less money and it doesn’t count on your GPA, there’s no remediation, it’s cheaper and it’s faster,” Hamilton said.

Though the UVU administration was initially supportive of her decision to downgrade the BYU math credit and continued to support it through February, she believes undue political influence from BYU and Ology resulted in administrators reversing the policy change. The student petition to reverse the change was spurred on by Ology, she said.

Hamilton believes that UVU administrators were more interested in getting students through as fast as possible rather than fulfilling the spirt and the law of the general education math credit. The administration’s final stance, she said, was one of ambivalence.

“If I said I have a great idea. I’ve come up with a new course that’s really three credits but it will count as four, and everybody will pass it even if they have no math preparation and it won’t count on their GPA, I’d get laughed out of the meeting,” Hamilton said.

She said the only way to fix the current situation in which students are coming into UVU underequipped for college algebra is to have them demonstrate prerequisites before enrolling in classes.

“We have a fantastic development math program that steps students through [based on where they’re at]. They come out and realize that they can do math. I’ve seen students totally transformed,” Hamilton said. “I feel that every student out there is capable of learning math. Society thinks they can’t. I think we do a really good job in educating students in mathematics.”