TEACHSOC: Re: Institutional Support for Adjuncts

[Stephen Sweet]

Greetings Eileen- In any given semester, I suspect most sociology teachers instruct upwards of 75 students (and many of us far more).  We should remember that it would be unusual for all of these students to complete all assignments and all exams at pre-scheduled times.  Cars do break down, children do get sick, and grandparents sometimes actually do die.  This suggests not putting a hard fast rule about missing a scheduled date as having an inevitable and devastating impact on a grade.  While evaluating the merits of excuses is one approach, it can put the professor in an uncomfortable position of saying "that is not good enough" or "I don't believe you." Here is my approach - on my syllabi I write the following: Students must give advance notice if an exam schedule conflicts with other obligations.  Should a student not be able to take a test on the scheduled date, the examination may involve an alternate evaluation technique, such as an oral exam.  Note, forgetting an exam is not considered a valid reason for missing an exam. Oral exams usually take only about 5-10 minutes to conduct and I think on the whole provide far more valid indications of student learning than written exams (If only we had the time to do these for all students).  For the student who comes in late, one can simply say that the exam has started and instruct her/him to meet in the office immediately following the exam for an oral.  Works like a charm.  Never had a complaint from a student yet on this, and never had it abused (who wants to take an oral exam with a professor?!). -steve Eileen Ie wrote: I'm a new adjunct at various community colleges (just finished my master's a year ago and started teaching immediately). In my very first class I had a "problem" student and the situation was resolved only when the dean of our division stepped in to mediate. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the way it was handled. This semester, I have another situation and again my dean has stepped in and has enforced a resolution I don't support.   In both cases, the student's rarely came to class and when they did they either came in late or left early. With the present situation, the student came in 45 min. late for the final and I didn't allow her to take it. She went to the dean and filed a complaint. I get a message from my dean that says I must allow the student to take it.   What are the rules regarding this?   Please help. Is this just the way this profession is? Students make complaints to the higher ups and professors must bend? Am I being too idealistic about standards? How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low PC-to-Phone call rates. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teaching Sociology" group. To post to this group, send email to teachsoc@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/teachsoc -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---