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(From the Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance Document, Article III, Section A) 

The GAAG committee is composed of five tenured faculty members elected from the Colleges to serve two-year terms, two students serving one-year terms, and a Presidential Appointee to serve at the pleasure of the University President. 

The Members of the Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance Committee for Academic Year 2025-2026 are:

• Dr. Amanda Morrison, Department of Psychology, College of Science (Term: 2024-26) 
• Dr. Lan Wu*, Department of Management College of Business & Economics (Term: 2025-27)
• Dr. Arnab Mukherjea, Department of Public Health, College of Health (Term: 2023-25): 
• TBD, CLASS: TBD 
• TBD, ASI Representative (Term: Fall 2025) 
• Dr. Erica Wildy, Presidential Appointee (= Coordinator) to the Grade Appeal & Academic Grievance Process

NOTE 1: If you are alleging discrimination as part of your grade appeal and academic grievance case, you should also file a separate discrimination case with the staff of the  Civil Rights/Title IX/DHR Office. They can be contacted at  civilrights@csueastbay.edu or (510) 885-4918. The grade appeal/academic grievance and discrimination complaint processes will take place simultaneously with the results of the discrimination case added to your case file before being distributed to the Grade Appeal & Academic Grievance Committee (Step 9 below) for their consideration.

NOTE 2: *For students with concerns about an Academic Dishonesty Reports (ADR) filed against them: ADRs  are not forwarded to anyone, placed on your transcript or even communicated to instructors of courses that you take moving forward. They are placed in a database, where they will remain for five years or until your graduate, whichever comes first. With each ADR beyond the first (but possibly with your first too) you will be contacted by the Director of the Office of Student Conduct, Rights, and Responsibilities to review the nature of the allegations of misconduct, provide you with information about how you can refute the allegations, and offered options for resolving the situation. In the case that a student believes that an ADR has been filed against them inappropriately, they can petition the Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance Committee to have a hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to have the ADR removed from their file. The steps for doing this are listed below.

STEPS OF THE GRADE APPEAL AND ACADEMIC GRIEVANCE PROCESS

The full set of steps you would need to follow prior to and when filing a grade appeal petition can be found  here , and the petition form is  . 

1) Before you can file a petition, you will need to formally bring up your concerns to the instructor for the relevant course;

2) The next step would be to discuss your concerns formally with the Chair of the Department in which the course is taught. 

3) If your concerns are not addressed to your satisfaction following your discussion with the Department Chair you would then bring your concerns formally to the Associate Dean of the college to see if your concerns can be resolved there.

4) Once you have completed these steps, the next step involves you contacting the Presidential Appointee (P.A.) to the Grade Appeals and Academic Grievance (GAAG) Committee (this person is like a coordinator for the process) at grade.appeal@csueastbay.edu regarding moving forward with filing a formal petition. The P.A. can advise you on the strength of your case and provide you with additional details about filing an appeal.

5) Following making contact with the P.A. again, if you decide to pursue filing a petition to have your case heard, then you will need to fill out the  . As part of your filing, you will be asked to attach a  Statement of  Grievance and any additional any materials (e.g., the course syllabus, copies of emails; copies of relevant exams and/or assignments; a copy of the  Academic  Dishonesty Report where relevant) which help clarify or support the points you make in your statement. For your Statement of Grievance, be sure to describe the specific basis on which you are filing your petition (i.e.,  see points a-g on pgs. 1-2, of the GAAG document  here  to read more about what constitutes "unfair"). Also, if you are submitting a petition for a course after above-stated deadline, you should make sure that you indicate in your petition why you did not submit your petition before/by then.

6) After you have finished filling out the the   and have submitted it, your next step is to send an email to the P.A. at gradeappeal@csueastbay.edu  and let them know that you have submitted this material.

7) The P.A. will then start a file for you which will contain the materials you have sent, the course instructor response (see below) and, if your case involves discrimination, the findings of the Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation office.  

8) The P.A. contacts the instructor of the course in question and provides them with your case file and an opportunity to submit a response. They will have ten  "academic" days (i.e., does not include weekend days, holidays, or period in between academic terms).

9) Following the ten academic days, the P.A. will organize the materials in your file and then make it available to the GAAG Committee members. The Committee members will be provided with these materials at least a week ahead of the next meeting to provide them with sufficient to thoroughly review the case file. The GAAG Committee meets on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month (see specific dates listed in the  Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance Committee Meeting Dates & Deadlines for Sumitting a Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance Petition  dropdown menu). 

10) During the meeting at which your case is considered, the GAAG Committee, which consists of 4-6 faculty and one or two ASI student representatives, will discuss your case and ultimately vote on whether your case should be forwarded to a Hearing Panel. If the GAAG Committee decides that your case should not be granted a hearing, your case will be dismissed, your grade or ADR (whichever is relevant) will remain in place, and that is where things end. However, if the Committee decides that your case should be granted a hearing, then your case will be heard by a new, smaller group of individuals referred to as the Hearing Panel. 

11) The Hearing Panel will consist of two new faculty and one new ASI (student) representative. Their charge is to:

• consider your case more in depth;
• call for any additional materials that they think are important;
• give you an opportunity to speak on your own behalf;
• give the faculty person a chance to speak on their own behalf (at a separate time from you)

After the Panel considers all of the information in front of them, they will deliberate on the matter and issue a final decision on whether you should have your requested resolution met and/or if the faculty's  decision should  remain in place.

As described in the Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance document, prior to submitting a petition for a Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance hearing, you must discuss the matter with the course instructor. If no resolution is reached, then you must meet with the Chair of the Department from which the course originates to discuss the matter. If no resolution is reached with them, then you must make a final attempt to resolve the matter by meeting with the appropriate Associate Dean for the College in which the course originates. To assist you with this process, the names of the relevant Associate Deans for the four Colleges are listed below:               

• College of Business & Economics: Dr. Lynn Bowes-Sperry (lynn.bowessperry@csueastbay.edu)
• College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences: Dr. Linda Ivey (linda.ivey@csueastbay.edu)
• College of Science: Dr. Julie Glass (julie.glass@csueastbay.edu) 
• College of Health: Dr. Shubha Kashinath (shubha.kashinath@csueastbay.edu)

As described in the beginning of Article II of the Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance document, faculty members at Ãå±±½ûµØ have the sole right and responsibility to assign grades. It is assumed that the grades assigned by faculty members are free from error, prejudice, or capriciousness (randomness)." Violations of this default understanding, and grounds on which you can file a petition for a Grade Appeal/Academic Grievance hearing are:

1. Grading based on anything other than the student’s performance in the course.                 
2. Grading based on prejudice.
3. Arbitrary grade assignment (the lack of consistent and equitable standards for grade assignment).
4. Instructor’s failure to notify students as to the basis of grade determination in a clear and timely manner.  
5. Grading that results from a substantial departure from the instructor’s announced standards.
6. Clerical error in calculating or recording the grade.
7. An academic dishonesty charge that the student feels was filed in error and wishes to dispute.

As the student petitioner, you must present evidence that the grade(s), academic dishonesty report, or program separation was due to standards and procedures that were inconsistent, unfair, inequitably applied, or unclearly communicated. Otherwise, the grade assigned by the instructor of record is considered to be correct and final.

• CSUEB Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance website
• Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance document

Q. What if I want to file a petition for a Grade Appeal/Academic Grievance at the end of the term in which I am scheduled to graduate?

A. In this case, you need to notify your graduation evaluator that you filing a , and they will provide you with your options. In general, once your degree has been posted, no grade changes will be recorded. So, one option will be to delay your graduation. After the Grade Appeal/Academic Grievance process concludes, you can apply to have your graduation term retroactively backdated, If this is not granted, then you would receive your diploma at the end of the upcoming term.

Q. What do I need to do before I can submit a petition for a Grade Appeal & Academic Grievance Hearing?

A. The Grade Appeal and Academic Grievance (GAAG) process involves student-filed complaints/cases where the student feels that they were assigned a final grade by a course instructor based on "unfair" practices and/or had an Academic Dishonesty Report filed on them "unfairly". (See the first and second pages of the GAAG document here (see pgs. 1-2) to read more about what kinds of actions may be appropriate to describe as "unfair" as it pertains to this GAAG process.) While a course is ongoing and/or before you can file a, your resources for addressing your concerns would be the course instructor as well as the Chair of the Department from which the course is delivered and, if you cannot find a resolution at that level, the Associate Dean for the College. These are also Steps 1-3 of the GAAG process (see summary of steps below and a more in depth description of the GAAG process here.) These steps have been put in place prior to filing a petition because the hope is that you would be able to resolve your concerns more locally, which has a higher likelihood of working out in a manner that is satisfactory to you.