University provides additional final exam guidance for faculty
The following message was sent to 51 faculty on April 24, 2020.
Dear Colleagues,
As we embark upon the final week of spring semester, we would like to take this opportunity to commend you for all your tremendous efforts to continue to educate and support our students during this unprecedented time. We recognize that this exam period will be very different from what we anticipated in January, so we are sharing some additional information about this semester’s final exam week.
In accordance with the Faculty Handbook, all courses should include a final examination or other summative experience. As you are aware, final “exams” do not have to be in a testing format and can be a final assessment such as a paper, project, or portfolio. Given the challenges of remote synchronous testing, we encourage you to consider an alternate assessment format.
• If the final exam is asynchronous, it does not have to be held during the same time block as on the final exam schedule and may be scheduled flexibly.
• If you plan to hold an exam synchronously, it must take place on the scheduled day and time for your course section. Please remember that any deviation from the scheduled, synchronous final exam schedule can only be made with prior approval of the dean of your college in accordance with the Faculty Handbook.
Please be mindful that there may be students who are unable to make the scheduled time for a synchronous exam due to challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic or remote learning, including access to internet connectivity. We respectfully request flexibility for individual students who may need to make alternative arrangements.
In addition, students are not expected to sit for more than three exams in one day and can request an alternative schedule if necessary.
We want to thank all of you for your continued commitment to meeting our students’ needs during this challenging time, and we wish you a healthy close to the semester.
Sincerely,
Robin Muhammad
Chair of Faculty Senate
Elizabeth Sayrs
Executive Vice President and Provost