Our department won’t remove the pass list despite our anxiety concerns

Despite outrage from students who suffer from anxiety, the psychology department have refused to not publicly post results because it’s “tradition”.

Putting it down to centuries of tradition and a time saving method, the department failed to consider the serious emotional ramifications it could have for students.

The department produce a class list, presenting the final degree classifications of all students, with their full names, in the department building where anyone can see them. In first and second year, results are privately obtained and the change in the most important year has caused hundreds of complaints from psychology students of all years.

The official statement from the department reduced anxiety disorders to the ‘thrill of results’, which one student stated was “Trump level bad” and “quite possibly the worst justification I have heard for anything.”

Due to the number of complaints the department met with students but no changes have been made yet, despite discussion about general anxiety, the point of anxiety disorders was missed.

Many students think the method is just a “poor lazy excuse” and adding insult to injury the department took an outdated stance on ‘disability’ taking it to just mean physical, stating that results would be published at wheelchair height to combat the issue.

One student replied to the statement from the department highlighting the outdated and insulting comments: “Who else is disabled and wants to rent a wheelchair because that suddenly means they can see/hear/read/don’t have autism/don’t have mental health problems.”

The irony of the issue coming from the psychology department has not been lost on students, with several comments referencing the fact that of all people, the psychologists should be the ones to understand that disability is more than physical.  One student summed it up, commenting: “‘In terms of disabled student access the pass list should be displayed at wheelchair height’ – are you actually kidding me?”

The policy is not university wide therefore its understandable why these students feel targeted – although several other departments follow the pass list policy.

One student the Tab spoke to said: “Throughout school in the UK your grades at kept in the highest confidence and are revealed only to you. It seems confusing that arguably the biggest result you receive is made public, especially when the system is so difference for our prior 3 years. I understand the reasons behind why the pass list is used but surely there’s a better way? It’s probably unrealistic to expect change to happen this year, but hopefully the university will take notice and look into making some changes.”

For many students the issue of a public ‘Pass List’ alone is enough to warrant complaint, but the justification has made it worse, reducing mental disabilities to an insignificant issue, ignoring the harm it could do to students.

The Director of the school has promised to comment today.

[Since publication the School of Psychology have confirmed that they will be using the pass list system, and have refused to acknowledge the affect this could have on students.]