1. Every instructor shall turn in a letter grade on a scale of A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, D-, or F for every student registered in every class at the time designated at the end of each semester.
Each matriculated student will be permitted to designate during his/her academic career one course each semester to a maximum of four courses, not required by his/her major or General Education Distribution Requirement as "Pass/Low Pass/Fail" courses. Traditional undergraduate students may not elect the Pass/Low Pass/Fail Option for summer courses. Courses mandated "Pass/ Fail," e.g., student-taught courses and open semesters, will not count toward the four course maximum. Any student on Academic Probation shall not be permitted to elect a course "Pass/Low Pass/Fail" during the next semester of enrollment after the Probation is incurred. (Amended April 6, 1999)
A student wishing to take a course Pass/Low Pass/Fail will make that designation by the end of the Add/Drop Period and will receive from the Registrar a receipt of the designation. No course may be designated Pass/Low Pass/Fail after the end of the Add Drop Period. A student may change from the Pass/Low Pass/Fail option to a letter grade by filling out a form at the Registrar's Office prior to the close of the last day of classes of the semester in which the course is taken. No change may be made after that day.
Students whose names appear on the final class list but who have failed to appear or respond to requests to appear must be considered members of that course and graded accordingly, provided that the instructor has checked with the Registrar to ascertain the student's enrollment. In the event that a grade is not reported, the grade of "NGR" (No Grade Received) will be recorded, which will convert to "F" 15 days from the last day of exams. (Amended December 6, 1994)
2. The designation "Incomplete" may be recorded on a student's record for a course when the following circumstances are met and the following procedures are used.
(a) A subcommittee of the Academic Affairs Committee composed of the Chairperson of the Academic Affairs Committee, an elected Faculty member of the Academic Affairs Committee, and the Dean of Students shall be empowered to issue INCOMPLETEs. By majority vote, the subcommittee may permit the temporary notation of "INC" to be recorded for a course by the Registrar on a student's permanent transcript.
(b) To receive an INCOMPLETE a student must request it in writing through the Dean of Students. The request must state the reasons which prevented the completion of the work and the reasons must be verifiable. If a student is incapacitated, the Dean of Students may submit the request to the subcommittee for the student.
(c) Upon receipt of a request for an INCOMPLETE, the Dean of Students will verify the reasons for the INCOMPLETE and consult with the instructor. The subcommittee shall not grant an INCOMPLETE prior to consultation with the instructor and the student's academic advisor.
(d) The subcommittee will grant an INCOMPLETE only when the student was unable to complete the course work for a verified wholly unusual or unforeseen difficulty of the magnitude of serious illness or death in the immediate family or for a sound educational reason. Too much work at the end of a semester shall not constitute grounds for assignment of INCOMPLETE, nor shall simple failure to fulfill final course work such as final examinations or papers. In such cases, the instructor will issue a grade on the basis of work completed with appropriate penalty for missing work.
(e) The conditions which must be fulfilled in order to remove the INCOMPLETE will be determined by the instructor. The time when the conditions must be fulfilled in order to remove the INCOMPLETE will be set by the subcommittee in consultation with the instructor and the student. The subcommittee will formalize for both, in writing, the conditions to be fulfilled and the date for their fulfillment in order for the Registrar to remove the INCOMPLETE and for the instructor to assign a letter grade. If the student fails to meet the conditions for removing the INCOMPLETE by the date specified, the instructor will issue a grade which reflects the performance of the student including an appropriate penalty (usually an "F" for the missing work) for the incompleted work.
(f) In very unusual cases, such as serious, prolonged illness, the designation of INCOMPLETE may be allowed to stand permanently without removal.
(g) Each semester the Academic Affairs Committee will review the INCOMPLETEs granted in the previous term, the reasons for granting them, and the deadlines set for their removal. This review will be for the purpose of establishing and reviewing guidelines for the subcommittee that grants Incompletes to use in its deliberations.
3.A student's grade in a course may be changed by the course instructor. Grade changes shall be based on the grounds of computational or judgmental error, or by circumstances beyond the control of the instructor or the student.
Judgmental errors involve changing one's judgment of a student's performance on a paper, in-class participation or on any aspect of a student's activity in a course which would affect the student's grade and which depends solely on the instructor's judgment.
Computation errors involve errors of arithmetic on exams or on calculating an average or any arithmetic errors which caused an instructor to calculate a quantitative measure of a student's work incorrectly.
Circumstances beyond the control of the instructor and student must rest upon the instructor's judgment that "control" was clearly absent for either the instructor or the student. Examples of this category are the loss or delay of a paper sent to an instructor in the mail, or the scrambling or loss of text in a paper due to a problem in word processing machinery.
The instructor shall forward a request for a grade change to the Academic Affairs Committee through the Registrar's Office on a form provided by that Office. The Registrar will process the requests and report them to the Academic Affairs Committee.
Once each semester the Committee will report to the Faculty the Grade changes for that semester and the names of the students and instructors involved. The report shall be for the information of the Faculty, not for a vote.
(Passed April 21, 1987)
4.The designation "Withdrawal" shall be used if a student withdraws from a course after the last day of the Add/Drop Period up to and including the Friday of the fourth full week of classes, except in Physical Education, wherein a course must be dropped by the Friday of the fourth full week of the quarter. Students claiming extenuating circumstances may petition the Academic Affairs Committee for permission to withdraw from a course after the withdrawal deadline. (Amended May 6, 1997)
The preceding four regulations shall be (1) printed in the Faculty Manual and (2) reprinted each year and included by the Registrar with the requested grades at the end of each term. It shall be the special responsibility of the department chair to discuss these points with each new department member early in the term.
(Passed May 17, 1983)