If all is going according to plan, it is now Wednesday. Everyone has had a little withdrawal deadline talk with each of his/her classes. Everyone has sat down with their class lists and given “W”s and last dates of attendance to everyone who is not attending. Everyone who remains ungraded on your class list is a legitimate grade deserving student and you will have no problem issuing them a grade in December. We are all set with faculty withdrawals and no one will need to enter one after November 22. Whew. As I mentioned yesterday, my attempts to be allowed to take moisturizing and sugary bribes in exchange for allowing late withdrawals were turned down. So I’m glad that isn’t going to be an issue.
Q: I know Banner will allow me to input a “W” after the 11/22 deadline. What’s to stop me?
A: Ah, here is another proposal I made that was turned down. My plan was to have my picture appear on your screen, screaming at you, "late withdrawals are not allowed!" Apparently there are other programming jobs that take precedence over this one. Maybe this enhancement will be ready for spring. In the absence of my screaming face, nothing will happen… (Vincent Price voice) at least right away (am I scaring you?). We will be running a report every day that will list all the withdrawals that went into the system after the deadline. These are reported in the college audit report as potential errors/problems. We need to avoid sending up these red error flags in our audit.
Q: I indicated during the attendance period that a student was no longer attending my class. He is still on my class list. Shouldn’t he have been dropped? What should I do with him? He’s never even been here.
A: While the majority of students who are tagged as "never attended" in the attendance collection period are dropped from the course, many are not. Reporting a student as never attending does not guarantee he will be dropped; lack of attendance is just one of many other factors, most of them financial, that are considered before the student is or isn’t dropped. The bottom line is that if a student is still appearing on your class roster he will need to be graded. If you have never seen him and don’t want to give him an “F” you need to withdraw him by 11/22.
Q: I have a student who asked me to withdraw him. Am I obligated to do this?
A: No. Withdrawal is a student’s responsibility. I do think you are obligated to make it clear to him that you will not withdraw him though. We always have a lot of students who miss the withdrawal deadline then claim they thought their instructor withdrew them. If you are not going to withdraw a student, please be sure he understands that. I’d make a note of that in my grade book so when he came in complaining of an “F” I could remind him of that conversation.
The exception, for me, would be if a student called me from the hospital or had other extenuating circumstances that made it impossible for him to withdraw himself. Now that students can withdraw online, this should be less of an issue. No one needs to come to the Registrar’s Office to withdraw anymore. In a few years we will probably be telepathically withdrawing people.
Q: Why is the last date of attendance so important for a withdrawal?
A: Financial Aid must be re-evaluated for any student who did not successfully complete a course. The last date of attendance is essential information for the financial aid evaluation. It’s easy to input this date when you give the student a “W”. It’s a bit of a project when you don’t input the date and then we have to track it down and input it manually for each student. We really love it when you don’t forget this vital bit of information!
Q: Can you remind me again of the withdrawal deadline date? I’m afraid that if you don’t tell me 100 times per article I might not remember.
A: (Double whammy hex evil eyed stare that will haunt your dreams for several nights)
Deborah Benjamin
Registration and Records
11/19/2008 |