My son had a final scheduled for 8 a.m. on Friday. The professor forgot the correct time, and didn’t show up until 10. The room was booked for another exam at 10:15 or 10:30, and - at this very large university - it was impossible to reschedule. I wonder if anyone else in this forum has heard of similar situations, and how the university handled them. I think the only fair resolution is to give 100 to every student. It would be grossly unfair to give them incompletes, especially since it’s an Intro class which is a prerequisite for others. It wouldn’t be right to use the student’s previous grades, since many of them might have busted their ***es to bring their grades up with a strong final (I’m not sure what percentage of the grade the final counts for, but I presume it’s probably about 50%, if not more). It’s a foreign language course, which could be a prerequisite for students going abroad for next semester.
If I were a student in that class, I’d be filing a complaint with the relevant dean and try organizing other students to join me. It’s one thing for younger students to forget the correct time for a final…but the Professor is the professional here who likely had some/full input into scheduling the final well ahead of time. Thus…the Prof has little/no excuse for this level of unprofessionalism.
On the other hand, I don’t think giving 100s to every student is a fair solution either as:
Not fair to students taking other sections of the same level of foreign language who actually took the test and earned the grade they received on it.
In a field which builds up heavily on previous skillsets taken in lower-level courses, giving 100s to everyone will set up the weaker performing students for struggling to turn out a much weaker performance or even failure in the next higher level course in the foreign language sequence. Not good from an educational standpoint.
Really frustrating situation. The first step is for your son to find out how it will be handled by the school. If he feels the resolution is not fair he can then go on and talk to the professor, department chair, dean of students etc
IMO giving everyone a 100% for the final is not feasible nor is giving everyone an incomplete. They might offer a make-up exam, give an online final, or allow students to stick with the grade to date as the final grade. In any event it should be resolved before finals are completed at the school.
The professor can assign the grade the student has to this point or the professor can work around the student’s schedules to give the final or the professor can allow the student to choose whether they want the grade the have or to take the final at a different time.
What’s interesting to me is that the prof made an honest mistake. He’s human. It’s not like he’ll have his pay docked or anything. But, if a student were to make this mistake, what do you think would have happened?
Only students who aced the mid-term and earlier assignments would accept the solution of using the pre-final grades. Lots of students blow mid-terms, especially in Intro classes. Many of the students in the class are freshmen, still adjusting to college demands, and others might presume the class is easier. They will work overtime to pull the grade up for the final, and might have been impeccably prepared that particular morning. My son doesn’t know how the department will address it. The professor was the culpable party; that is indisputable, and the students shouldn’t be penalized. Everybody remembers how students’ time and energy are distributed during exam period. When students walk into a French final on a Friday morning, they expect to be tested on what they studied right then and there. They are likely to have other subjects to study for, papers to write, projects to complete, part-time jobs to fulfill, and airline reservations for flights home that can’t be changed. They should be presumed to have done their part, even if some probably didn’t; they deserve the benefit of the doubt in any resolution. None should be asked to make extraordinary arrangements and concessions because the professor messed up. I was not entirely facetious about the 100% suggestion. I think the university could face some ugly backlash from students whose scholarships are jeopardized or whose perfect GPAs are compromised by this debacle. It can’t really be corrected, since the students will never get their time back, and they all need to move on.
@mom2collegekids, re: #4 - According to my son, this is an adjunct professor, not a tenured faculty member, so he might well have been on his way out, anyhow, and didn’t especially care. I don’t know whether that’s entirely accurate, or simply student speculation. He had actually confirmed the 8 a.m. start-time in an e-mail to another student the previous evening.
Disclosure: I have no idea how my son was doing in this class. He never glowingly reported a great grade, nor did he ever lament a poor one. He did make it to the final on time, apparently.
DD’s professor also did something similar this past week. DD is at a large university. The exams were distributed and then the class realized that he ran out of exams, with about 100 students lacking an exam.
“Professor Unlucky” then sent those students, without exams, to wait outside, while his GA ran to print out more. The department’s printer “broke”, so the GA had to run to another department. Time ran out for that class. The hundred or so who didn’t get to take the test had to send an email indicating their name and that they weren’t able to take the test. The professor ended up rescheduling the 100, curving the test for everyone. I guess the way that he curved it worked to everyone’s advantage, but I don’t know what the outcome is/was.
My suggestion of a 100 for everyone is unrealistic, I concede, but how about this: the professor offers an automatic 85, or B, to everyone? Those that aren’t satisfied with that grade can work out an arrangement to take the exam later. Any students who accept the B-option, but plan to progress to a higher-level class, will have to take the exam, or some proficiency test, pass-fail, before the next semester commences. They can take the test as a take-home. They simply need to show that they will be able to work at the next level. The students who are satisfied with a B on the final can finish up their semester and be done with it.
ucbalumnus - That sounds reasonable, but I’m not sure what the university’s Pass-Fail policies are. It could be that the option wouldn’t work for students in some departments or for prerequisites. I’m sure that my son would accept that compromise, assuming he passed earlier tests and assignments.
Students typically ration out their pass-fail options carefully at college, and having to use one when they hadn’t planned to could create headaches for some.
Not that the university is likely to care what our opinions are, but - I think they should give the students the option to go with their current grade or to take an online test which is shorter than the original exam.
Perhaps the online test could be offered at three different times with three different versions.
My older son had a very strange experience with one of his profs throughout the semester, including not showing up for the final. In the end, he wrote the class the letter explaining that he was being heavily treated for cancer. He gave everyone an A in the class. Fair? Maybe not to those who earned an A, and maybe not fair to those who were earning a C or worse…but, that was the only solution really for a large class. Semester was ending, kids were heading home…
I’m puzzled by two things. The prof evidently was confused about the time of the final exam. Why wasn’t he contacted after he failed to show up in the first 5 or 10 minutes? He doesn’t answer his phone for 2 hours during working hours? Secondly, why didn’t he leave a copy of the final exam accessible to department staff in event of emergency? This should always be done for important exams.
True, but students who do not want to take the passed / not-passed option in the proposed remedy in #10 would still have the option of taking the letter grade based on previous work or taking a make up final.
Being late for a class or exam is a recurring dream for many professors. Fortunately, it has not happened to me in 25+ years of teaching, but I am sympathetic to the instructor who gets the time wrong. I have no sympathy for the instructor who is delinquent, as our D just experienced. One of her professors is retiring at the end of the semester. For the last lecture, he brought in bagels and Mimosas for the class. Unfortunately, Professor Party Time never got around to making up the final exam. While the students were studying for the exam, they received an email saying that he had decided instead to assign some readings (which are unrelated to the material they had been studying) for them to interpret. Structure your course as you like, but bait-and-switch is never a good policy.
DD’s last exam - professor didn’t realize he needed to check where the exam was going to be taken - he assumed in the room they had for the course instruction, but another final was scheduled in that room. Students realized and other professor showed up first, so dept was contacted and they notified professor. So professor showed up with exams and had found out by dept where they were to go take the exam - a hike across campus. But with the late start, he added exam time at the end. It was fine.