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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Withdrawal Yoga: Trying to Stay Flexible—Late Withdrawals Part 3


Having spent many decades in human form, living with others of my species, I have discovered that:

1.  People sometimes wait until the last minute to do things

2.  Unexpected things happen

When both these take place at the same time we are in big trouble. If the withdrawal deadline is April 27, there are numerous students who plan to wait until April 27 at 4:00 p.m. to turn in their withdrawal forms. Coincidently, other things will happen on April 27 that they don’t plan on—cars won’t start, children will be sick, there will be a SERIOUS death in the family*, the calendar will be on the wrong month, they won’t even be aware that there is a withdrawal deadline, they will lose their withdrawal form, they won’t realize they are failing until April 28, they thought their professor would withdraw them if they just stopped attending, they didn’t know, they didn’t know, they didn’t know, they didn’t know.**

Years ago these cases were handled individually and, depending on who the student talked to, they were either allowed to withdraw or not. In an effort to organize the post deadline pleading and to make it more equitable, we have allowed the students to have ONE semester in which they are allowed to submit a course withdrawals after the deadline. Everyone’s excuse is valid and students do not have to keep meeting with people until they find someone who will let them withdraw. At the time the students are granted this one time late withdrawal they are also given a list of all the places in which withdrawal deadlines are posted and urged to not wait until the last minute again as, regardless of the excuse, the extension is for one semester only. Students are also told they need their professor’s signature to withdraw after the deadline.

Although this withdrawal extension process has been going on for six or seven years, many faculty are not aware of it because they haven’t been approached for a signature on a late withdrawal form. If you are asked to agree to a withdrawal after the deadline please keep in mind that you DO NOT have to agree to it. I know faculty who are not familiar with the process have been told by students that the Registrar’s Office needs for them to sign this form, implying that there is not an option to refuse. This is not true. The student NEEDS your permission to withdraw after the deadline and we will not accept a late withdrawal without your signature.

This procedure may not be ideal but it is the best way we have found to deal with the onslaught of people who come in the week after the withdrawal deadline with excuses. Other than being totally inflexible, the withdrawal extension process has been the best way to deal fairly with all the students. We also hope to make it a learning experience by letting them know all the places they can locate the withdrawal deadline date and reminding them not to wait until the last minute. We will not process another late withdrawal if the student has already used the extension procedure one semester.  Interestingly, we have had to turn down very few repeat offenders. We hope that means that they are learning. Before the one time extension process we had the same students coming in semester after semester having missed the deadline. Now we occasionally have one or two repeaters. Most semesters we don’t have any. Someone is learning something, or else, en masse, they are not returning to MCC.

In Part 4 I will do some FAQs about the withdrawal process. Please feel free to email me if you have questions so I can address them in the article.

"mailto:dbenjamin@monroecc.edu"

*Yes, we actually had a student write to us emphasizing that he had had a SERIOUS death in his family.

**All of the above are reasons we frequently hear for missing the withdrawal deadline. No poetic license has been taken. We actually had a student call us on the deadline to withdraw over the phone because he was being taken into police custody and didn’t have time to come to campus.

Deborah Benjamin
Registration and Records
04/16/2007