People frequently ask me, since I am such a know it all, what I would do about withdrawals if I were a professor*. There are two equally acceptable roads you can take regarding withdrawals and one unacceptable one. Unfortunately, the unacceptable one is NOT the road less taken and somehow we need to work together to make sure it is. Let’s start with the positive.
Road #1: I take the stance that withdrawals are the student’s responsibility and I do not give any “W” grades. If a student’s name is on my class list at grading time he/she receives an “F” if they haven’t bothered to withdraw themselves. I know I can’t leave their grade blank and it doesn’t bother me to give a non-attendee an “F”.
Road #2: I don’t like to give students whom I have never seen an “F” grade at the end of the semester. If a student never attended or stopped attending and they were not dropped in the attendance audit, I make sure to give them a “W” grade before the withdrawal deadline of April 27.
Road #3, aka The Road to Disaster: I don’t do much monitoring of my class list during the semester and am surprised come grading time to see people listed whom I have never seen. Since I have no idea who they are I leave their grade blank or give them a “W” even though the deadline to submit a “W” was THREE weeks ago, April 27, as I recall.
Roads #1 and #2 are both completely acceptable. Road #3 makes a big mess in two major ways.
If you leave the grade blank the R&R Office is committed to getting a grade for that student no matter how obnoxious we have to be to do it. And believe me, we are trained professionals and can be more obnoxious than you can ever imagine. Don’t make us go there. A student should not have a transcript with a missing grade. You will eventually have to give that student an “F”. It saves us all a lot of time if you just give them the “F” when you grade the rest of the class.
If you give a student a “W” after the April 27 deadline, the transaction pops up in several audit reports. The college is then in the position of having to explain why we allowed a “W” grade after the deadline. If we have 30-40 of them, which we always do, it sets off all kinds of ugly alarms regarding our record keeping practices. If you’ve ever been audited by the IRS you’ll understand how painful this auditing thing is.
Please make a commitment right now to take either Road #1 or #2 and to avoid Road #3. And stay tuned for Part 2!
*Actually only ONE person ever asked me this but I’m sure she was speaking for the entire MCC faculty.
Deborah Benjamin
Registration and Records
04/04/2007 |