Don’t Tell Me These Things Until I’ve Had My Diet Coke Fix—Late Withdrawals Emergency Article
Next week, in part 4 of the withdrawal series, I plan on doing some FAQs. In Monday’s article I’ll be asking you to let me know what you would like covered in this article and will maybe do several articles on FAQs if I receive enough of them. Today I received an email from a professor mentioning a practice that literally made my hair stand on end. I decided to add it to the FAQs article and then discovered that I was in such an adrenaline charged state that it was going to run too long and that it needed to get out to everyone as soon as possible.
Q: I withdrew a student for missing too many classes. They now want to be reinstated. I don’t want to reinstate them but instead told them that the “W” will stay on their record until the end of the semester and if they don’t miss any more classes I will give them a grade for the course via a grade change form. What do you think of this plan?
A: This practice reminds me of a “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer changes his watch several days before daylight savings time and Jerry says, “Like THIS isn’t going to cause any problems”. There are way too many things that can go wrong if you keep the “W” on the students’ record with the understanding you will change it if he doesn’t miss any more classes.
1. The “W” on the student’s record is an official grade and indicates to anyone looking at the transcript, including financial aid, any institution he sends his transcript to and the Student Loan Clearing House, that the student is no longer attending that class. There may be financial gears that start moving when the “W” hits the record that cannot be undone a month or two later when the “W” is changed to a grade. This could adversely affect his ability to graduate if he has filed an intent to graduate form and the Graduation Certification Office is in the process of reviewing his record.
2. How many times will you be faced with a student who complies with the attendance agreement BUT still does poorly in the course and does not WANT you to change the “W” to a final grade at the end of the semester? If you change it per your agreement, which I hope you have in writing and notarized, the student may grieve the grade on the grounds that he was withdrawn from the class. If you don’t change the “W” to the final grade you are in essence allowing the student to choose his own grade. It would be like letting everyone register for all their courses as audits and then see what grades they got and decide which ones they wanted.
3. Changing a “W” to a grade after the end of the semester when we have not received notice that a student has been reinstated raises some alarms in R&R. We would question why this was done. We would wonder why the Chair signed it. The auditors would express concern. The issue of picking and choosing grades would be raised.
4. If for some reason the student had withdrawn themselves, perhaps sensing that they were no longer welcome in class due to excessive absences, and then had a change of heart and made the above arrangement with you, we would NOT change the student initiated “W” to a grade via a grade change. If a student withdraws from class and is not officially reinstated, we have to assume that the student’s wish to be withdrawn should not be changed. Compelling arguments otherwise, especially at the end of the spring term when locating students and faculty can be difficult, could take months to resolve. In the mean time the student’s transcript is in limbo.
I have worked with student records for 18 years at the UR and 15 years at MCC. I have been subpoenaed hundreds of times and audited even more often. I can assure you that the student’s transcript is an official document regardless of what point we are at in the semester. We send out hundreds of transcripts a week throughout the ENTIRE semester and not just after grading. Work in progress does display on the transcript. We can’t have phony placeholder grades on an official document.
It may be hours until I can breath normally again…
Deborah Benjamin
Registration and Records
04/06/2007 |