University of Richmond

Teaching Policies

Changing a Grade

Most departments have copies of the Change-of-Grade form, which can be found on BannerWeb under "Forms." If the grade being changed is for an "I" or "Y" (incompletes) then only the instructor needs to complete and return the form to the Registrar's Office. All other changes require signatures of the Department Chair and the Associate Dean of A&S for Academic Operations.

Incomplete grades are awarded when special circumstances such as illness or accident prevent the student from doing the required work before the end of the term. There are two types of incomplete grades, an "I" (punitive) and a "Y" (non-punitive). An "I" counts as an F in the student's GPA and is automatically converted to an "F" grade if the student has not made up the work assigned by the 45th calendar day after the end of the term and a change of grade form has been submitted. After assigning an "I", an instructor must submit to the Registrar's Office an "I" Confirmation Form, which can be found on BannerWeb under "Forms." A "Y" grade does not affect a student's GPA. As indicated above, the changing of an incomplete to a normal letter grade does not require signatures of the Chair or Dean. An "I" grade that has been converted to an "F" is no longer considered incomplete. (posted 5.2.06) See Registrar's page at http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/registrar/policy/grdpolcy.html.

Coursepack Creation

A "coursepack" is a collection of reprinted materials that you wish to distribute to students via the campus Bookstore. Printing Services can reproduce the materials provided approval is provided by the copyright holders. Printing Services can help obtain the required permissions. This is described in the coursepack production procedure.

Please note that obtaining permissions takes time, so you must think ahead.

Creating a Syllabus

Many faculty make their syllabi available on-line as part of a website for the class. In addition, SACS requires departments to maintain copies of all course syllabi on file. These examples may answer some questions, but you will want to look at the syllabi of previous and current instructors of the course. Some courses must incorporate policies and minimum content that have been agreed to by department faculty.

New Course Proposals

Any new courses must first be approved by the department or program offering the course. The Chair or Program Coordinator will then forward the proposal to the Dean of Arts and Sciences. Staffing implications should be fully explained. If there are no obvious problems, the Dean will then bring the course before the A&S Academic Council for action. If approved by Academic Council, it then goes to the entire Faculty of A&S for approval.

The process must be done with sufficient planning to allow the final approval to be completed before the course is placed on the schedule or in the catalog.

New Course Proposal Guidelines - a document indicating what information is required in a proposal.

Ordering Textbooks

You may order your textbooks directly from the Bookstore using their on-line request form. The normal deadlines are April 15th for texts used in the fall semester and October 15th for texts used in the spring semester. If you will not meet the deadline, let the Bookstore know when to expect a decision.

In multisection courses, please make sure that you are using any texts that are required for all sections. If you aren't sure, ask the Chair or course coordinator about texts to be used.

The anticipated enrollment should be realistic. The Chair can provide this information based on historical data.

Reserving a Room

You will sometimes need to reserve a classroom for a help session or a meeting with students outside the regularly scheduled class meeting time. To do this you must reserve a room in advance as many rooms are used in the evenings and even on weekends by the School of Continuing Studies and student organizations.

For classrooms call Brenda Blanks (x6561) in the Registrar's Office.

For large auditoriums and non-classroom spaces on campus contact Michelle Whiteside (x8172) in University Services.

Student Evaluation of Instruction

At the University of Richmond we ask students to provide feedback on the instruction they receive. This feedback becomes a part of the overall personnel review process.

Student evaluation of instruction takes two forms - formative and summative. Formative evaluations are simply to provide the instructor with immediate feedback on the current state of a class. Faculty are encouraged to use a number of simple methods to get feedback from their students.

Summative evaluations are used for personnel decisions. They have some aspects of formative evaluations in that they provide information that will be useful the next time the course is taught.

Final Exam Policies and Agreements

By stipulation of Arts & Sciences faculty (amended April 11, 2002 and December 2, 2004 by action of A&S Faculty), all final examinations are to be given during the scheduled time slots. In particular, final exams are not to be given during the last week of classes, and no exams are to be given during the reading period.

The following exceptions are allowed:

  • Faculty with multiple sections of the same course have the option of allowing their students to take the exam with any section.
  • Faculty teaching upper-level classes may allow all students individually to self-schedule their examination.
  • Exceptions to use of the reading period include oral components of exams in some language courses which must be individually scheduled.
  • Students wishing to observe religious holidays following the procedures specified in the University catalog.

The Arts & Sciences faculty have also agreed that if a course has a final test but no examination, that the final test should be given in the exam period time slot rather than in the last week of classes. Faculty are discouraged from giving major examinations during the last week of the semester. Faculty members giving take-home exams are expected to allow the exam papers to be turned in as late as the regularly scheduled exam slot.

Exceptions

Students who wish to take an exam at a time other than the schedule time slot will require permission of their residential college dean. This is normally only granted to students with international travel constraints or for participation in special events such as a wedding.

Faculty members who wish an exception to these policies must obtain permission from the Associate Dean for Academic Operations with support of their department chair.