Cell phones and similar communication devices may not be used in the classroom unless specifically permitted by the individual faculty member or as part of a University-approved accommodation plan. Students and faculty are not permitted to bring children to class.
A. Class Attendance and Absence Policy
- Course attendance requirements are set by each professor, within the limits of this policy and applicable laws, regulations, and accreditor requirements. Faculty requirements, chiefly with regard to the effect (if any) of unexcused absences on assignment or course grades will be included on the syllabus for each course.
- Students cannot be withdrawn from courses by faculty because of absences.
- Faculty may require students to make up work missed during or due to excused absences but may not impose any grade penalty in any form for work missed during or due to excused absences.
- In the event of documented medical conditions, including but not limited to those established by academic accommodations plans, absences will be considered to be excused.
- Absences due to participation in intercollegiate athletic competition (but not practices) will be considered to be excused.
- Absences due to participation in official University functions will be considered to be excused. Approval of absences due to official University functions and thus excused will be made by and communicated through the offices of the academic deans.
- If for any student in a course the total number of absences due to medical conditions, participation in intercollegiate athletic competition, official University functions, or other excused absences reaches a point that compromises the integrity or essential learning outcomes of the course, the professor will consult with the Associate Provost of Student Success to develop a plan of action for that student. In determining course policies regarding when student absences would compromise the integrity or essential learning outcomes of a course, faculty should consider the following (adapted from the findings of an Office of Civil Rights letter in a case involving the question of when attendance is an essential part of a class and thus not open to accommodation):
- What attendance policies are included in the course syllabus?
- Is attendance used to calculate any part of the final course grade and so specified in the syllabus?
- Does the fundamental nature of the course rely on student participation as an essential method for learning?
- Does the course design include significant classroom interaction between the instructor and students and among students?
- Do in-class student contributions constitute a significant component of the learning process in the course?
- To what degree does a student’s failure to attend constitute a significant loss to the educational experience of other students in the class?
- For absences due to participation in intercollegiate athletics and curricular or co-curricular events:
- Student athletes are responsible for notifying faculty of individual competition schedules in advance of any absence. Competition rosters and schedules will be provided by the Director of Athletics to the Director of Student Accessibility Services, in advance of advising periods. The Associate Provost of Student Success will provide these schedules and rosters to all faculty advisors prior to each advising period. Faculty advisors are encouraged to help student athletes avoid course/competition conflicts wherever possible when creating future course schedules.
- Faculty are encouraged to accommodate as far as possible the competition schedules of their students. Such accommodation can include arranging for make-up work, creating substitute experiences for students, and virtual participation in classroom activities through electronic means (where possible).
- Faculty are strongly encouraged to communicate with the student, the Associate Provost for Student Success, and the Director of Athletics in any case where the competition schedule appears to create a pattern of absences that will compromise the integrity or essential learning outcomes of the course. In those cases, both coaches and faculty are encouraged to seek specific compromises and solutions. In any case where compromise has not been able to be reached, the Provost will determine the course of action.
B. Changing Courses
Students may add courses only during the first week of term. Dates for adding courses are in the academic calendar. A student may drop a course in accordance with the following conditions:
- Without a grade - only during the first week of the term may a student drop courses without a grade.
- Warning: Anyone adding or dropping a course without following the proper procedure will: 1) not receive credit for the course added; and 2) receive an “F” for any course not officially dropped.
C. Other Regulations
Converse University reserves the right to add or drop programs and courses, change fees, change the calendar, and institute new requirements when such changes are necessary. Every effort will be made to minimize any inconveniences for students caused by such changes. Suitable substitutions will be allowed for required courses that have been withdrawn. Any difficulties arising from changes in published dates, requirements, or courses should be brought to the attention of the office of the Graduate School.
D. Classroom Procedure for Academic Work
These procedures protect the freedom granted the Student Body under the Honor Tradition and assure self-protection and consideration of others. Violation of any of these procedures is a violation of the Honor Tradition.
- Quizzes and Examinations:
- Giving or receiving knowledge about a quiz or examination before, during or after a testing situation or attempting to do so is a violation of the Honor Tradition.
- Students are permitted to make use of old quizzes or old examinations in preparation for quizzes and examinations. They may also study the classroom and laboratory notes of others.
- At no time during an examination period is a student permitted to comment to another student about the level of difficulty, specific content, or the general nature of any final examination the student has seen or taken. This prohibition applies even when the other student is not enrolled in the course concerned. Discussing examinations in any way is a violation of the Honor Tradition.
- During a Quiz or Examination:
- Examinations or quizzes must be taken in a classroom within the building in which it is administered or in another place designated by the instructor.
- There should be no supervision in a proctoring sense and the instructor should be free to come and go as desired.
- Students may leave the examination at will, but they are subject to the fixed time limit of the examination or quiz period.
- All books, papers, and notes must be left outside the classroom unless permitted by the instructor.
- Library and Laboratory Procedures:
Improper removal of any library book or material and removal without permission of any laboratory material or equipment violates the Honor Tradition.
- The Honor Tradition and Academic Work:
- All written work is to be pledged unless otherwise specified by the professor.
- A student may freely discuss ideas with others, since such discussion is a valuable stimulation to independent thought. But in written work material should be organized and ideas should be expressed without help from others.
- Students are expected to do all academic work in accordance with the principles of the Honor Tradition. These principles specifically applied to the preparation of papers are:
- The student’s written work must be essentially the product of their own mind. Some instructors may prefer that their students have the benefit of consultation with other students in preparing papers. Unless such freedom of consultation is explicitly given by the instructor, a student is expected to do their own work. They may ask other students about specific points of grammar or punctuation. Students should feel free to use the Writing Center without fear of violating the Honor Tradition.
- All creative writing is expected to be entirely original and should not be duplicated for another course without the instructor’s permission.
- In any critical research paper, the source of all material not original with the writer must be given full and specific acknowledgement. All phrases, sentences, or longer passages taken directly from another writer must be placed within quotation marks or in a block quotation and then cited properly; all phrases, sentences, or longer passages paraphrased from another writer must also be cited properly. Whether quoted directly or paraphrased, all ideas, opinions, and facts that are not common knowledge must be cited properly. Failure to distinguish one’s own work and ideas from works and ideas taken from another source constitutes plagiarism and is a direct violation of the Honor Tradition. The student is responsible for learning the proper means of distinguishing their own work from material they have borrowed or for asking the instructor if they are in doubt. Whether a student quotes directly, paraphrases, or summarizes, they must remember that they are obligated to acknowledge their indebtedness for the facts, opinions, ideas or words used.
a. Facts: Authority must be cited for the use of any fact not generally known. The assertion that Columbus discovered America in 1492 need not be supported. But if the student writes that Columbus strangled his wife with a red stocking, the authority must be produced. Most frequently, the failure to give adequate support occurs when the student is sketching in background information. For example, do not discuss the education of Thomas Hardy, the romance of the Brownings or the friendship of Tennyson and Hallum without some general acknowledgement as the following (in a footnote) “For the information about…, I am indebted to the following work or works…”
b. Opinions: Any opinion not the writer’s own used in a paper should be credited to its owner. If the writer’s thinking on a certain subject happens to lie parallel to that of T.S. Eliot, for instance, this fact must be acknowledged in the usual way and the thought then expressed in the writer’s own words. Many questions arise on this point, and the only satisfactory rule is that of common honesty.
c. Ideas: Any idea not the writer’s own used in a paper should be credited to its owner. For example, the idea that the structure of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn alternates between the river and the shore should be attributed to the originator of the idea, the critic Henry Nash Smith. As with opinions, many questions arise on this point, so the student must use common sense and honesty.
d. Guide: For a guide to the correct format for footnotes and other manners of acknowledging borrowed materials, consult a manual or stylebook approved by the instructor. Do not hesitate to consult the instructor about any problem of form or academic honesty.
e. Procedure: The instructor must judge evidence sufficient to warrant investigation. The instructor then raises the subject of plagiarism with the student, cites the passages under question, and tells the student either that on the basis of present information, no further action will be taken or that the matter should be reported to the appropriate Chair. In the former case, the question will not be raised again unless new evidence is uncovered. In the latter case, the instructor should remind the student that they have twenty-four hours to report their situation to the Dean of the Graduate School.
4. Plagiarism is distinguished from inadequate documentation, which involves errors in the form of documentation, but which still allows the reader to distinguish words and ideas originated by the student from words and ideas taken from another source. Evidence of plagiarism is sufficient grounds for referral to the appropriate Chair. Inadequate documentation shall be handled by the instructor.
E. Grades
- A student failing a course may be permitted to take the second portion of the course, if the course failed is the first term of a continuous course or the next higher course in the subject only with the approval of the department chair concerned.
- All fees that are currently due must be paid in full for a student to receive a diploma or certificate, or receive a transcript of his/her records. These fees include tuition, library charges, traffic fines (including other area colleges), health center charges, dining room charges, bookstore bills, returned checks, etc.