Important Information: finishing up the semester

From the email sent to all students by the Dean of Studies on Dec. 7:

I hope that your final projects and exams will provide moments in which you'll feel great about what you've learned and accomplished this semester. I also hope that you'll be healthy and crisis-free between now and the end of finals and that you won't need the following information; however, please read and keep this message just in case....

As you know, coursework is to be completed by assigned dates, and finals are to be taken at assigned times, but exceptions are possible if you experience the kind of compelling extenuating circumstances that I wouldn't wish on you. Please contact your Class Dean if you have any questions about the appropriateness of these procedures for you.

Incompletes

--apply to papers, projects, or reports. If your instructor is willing to grant additional time for completion of coursework, obtain the Incomplete Form from the Registrar's Office or online at http://barnard.edu/registrar/barnard-coursework/incompletes. Submit one completed copy to that office and one to your course instructor by 15 December. Please keep a third copy so that you'll have a record of your agreement.

Final Exams

The official exam schedule must be followed unless you have 2 exams scheduled for the same time or unless you have 4 exams within 48 hours or 3 within 24 hours. An instructor is not to change the scheduling of an exam without having received verification of the conflict or overload on the designated Registrar's Office form.

If you are unable to take an exam because of serious illness or disabling personal or family emergency, you must obtain permission for a deferred exam from your course instructor, as well as a dean in the Dean of Studies Office, on the day of the exam--prior to its scheduled beginning time. To speak with one of us, please call 212-854-2024 between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. for a morning exam and between 12:00 and 1:00 p.m. for an afternoon or evening exam.

If a deferral is approved by both the instructor and dean, you must submit the required form, including the $10 administration fee, to the Registrar's Office by 4 January 2012. The form is available at the Registrar's Office or at http://barnard.edu/registrar/barnard-coursework/deferred-exams. Deferred exams for Barnard and Columbia courses will be administered on Friday, 20 January (and on Monday, 23 January if you need to take more than two exams).

Please note that the Registrar's Office is unable to administer deferred exams that comprise (1) slides or Power Point presentations (e.g., Art History), (2) an oral component (e.g., languages), or (3) a listening component (e.g., music). Those exams must be administered by the specific departments and may be difficult to arrange.

An X, signifying the fact that the exam was deferred, will be on your transcript along with your course grade.

If you become ill during a final, inform your instructor or proctor, submit your bluebook(s) to her/him, and report to Health Services in Lower Level Brooks. If you have completed more than 40 minutes in a 2-hour exam or more than 1 hour in a 3-hour exam, you will be graded on your completed work, e.g., if you have answered only a 30-point question and earned 26 points for it, and if the exam is worth 100 points, your grade will be based on a score of 26/100. If you have been in the exam for less than 40 minutes or 1 hour, respectively, you must take a deferred exam.

Grades

Course grades are final and may be changed only in the event of clerical error or if the work of all of your classmates is reevaluated. A course grade may not be improved by reexamination or by the submission of additional or revised work. Your grades will be posted on eBear as soon as possible after faculty members have submitted them.

Academic Integrity

I wish it were different, but many of you seem to feel great pressure about grades. As a consequence, some of you over the past few years have taken unacceptable short cuts, cheating yourselves and your classmates. You probably know that misrepresentation of your situation, e.g., saying you're seriously ill when you're not, is also a violation of the College Honor Code--in addition to being a lie. At the risk of sounding preachy, I hope that all of us can agree that honesty in academic pursuits (and in all of our pursuits for that matter) is far more important to the way we choose to live our lives than is a course grade.

Winter Break

The Dean of Studies and Registrar's offices will  be closed from 23 December until 3 January. We hope you won't hesitate to contact us if we can be helpful during the rest of the Break.

We wish meaningful, enjoyable (fun!), and rejuvenating experiences for each one of you--

Karen Blank
Dean of Studies