Concise Procedures Guide

Please review the Asbury University Catalog. The University Catalog is available on-line (catalog.asbury.edu) and contains academic policies and procedures, as well as academic programs, requirements, and course descriptions.

Academic integrity is an essential foundation of the university community. Faculty and students share responsibility for maintaining mutual trust and integrity. Violations of such trust and specific acts of academic dishonesty will be subject to disciplinary action. It is the responsibility of every faculty member to make students aware of what constitutes honesty and dishonesty in academic work.

Course syllabi should include a reference to the definitions of cheating and plagiarism and what penalties will occur if a student engages in either of these practices. Review the institutional guidelines provided in the University Catalog for examples of academic dishonesty and reporting requirements. Integrity issues may occur on any academic assignment, such as papers, examinations, forums, etc.

1. Your classrooms and times are listed on each semester’s schedule, which can be seen on the Portal: https://portal.asbury.edu
2. Classes are to meet where scheduled. Faculty members may not change a class time or location.
3. If there is concern about the class time, please contact your department chair.
4. If there is a concern about your assigned room (seating capacity, etc.), please contact the Registrar, registrar@asbury.edu. If there is a room technology concern, please contact IT Services, helpdesk@asbury.edu.

Send an electronic copy of your syllabus to your department chair (maintained on file for five years) or the staff assistant.  This is a SACS-COC accreditation requirement.

A concise and clear syllabus is a vital ingredient of a university course.  It is critical that a syllabus include the following:

• Course prefix, number, and title
• Faculty member’s name
• Days, times and room number (if applicable); for online courses, synchronous session meeting times
• Faculty office number and office hours (so students can find you)
• Textbook details (as submitted to your department by the deadline for eCampus entry; textbook requirements are to match what was provided to students at the time of registration per federal regulations)
• Course requirements
• All due dates of all forms
• Final examination dates 
• Attendance policy – see Asbury Catalog and Attendance Policy section of this document (include any grading penalties for attendance)
• Policy on late work, including grading penalties
• Grading criteria (include any late work penalty or attendance penalty specifics)
• Policy on academic integrity/plagiarism (see Academic Integrity section of this document and reference Asbury University Catalog)
• Accommodation options for students with special needs
• Course evaluation statement

1. The syllabus is to be available on the first day of class.
2. While the syllabus is not technically a contract, it tends to function as such. With this in mind, please do not make changes in requirements, test dates, and other due dates after the class begins.  While students may seem to welcome a delay of an assignment or an examination, it is not fair to those who have made the effort to be prepared on time.  This one area can easily become a point of significant student and parental concern.

Asbury requires two-weeks of census date attendance posting for each term in the Faculty Portal for ALL classes (including all forms of individual instruction, such as directed study and internship), in light of federal reporting guidelines. For Faculty Portal attendance entry instructions, view the IT Services documents on the website titled Submitting Attendance through the Portal for both Traditional Undergraduate (on-campus classes) and Graduate/APS (online classes).

The goal of the two-week census attendance is to reach a one-to-one correlation between the rosters and the students in the classroom, verifying student attendance in the classroom. A student may not be able to receive Financial Aid for the semester until attendance is posted for their classes during the census period, so a faculty member will most likely be contacted if they fail to post attendance. Posting attendance in the Faculty Portal is not required beyond the census date period.

Asbury is not considered an attendance-taking institution by Federal Financial Aid regulations, and therefore permits faculty members to determine their own attendance policies but does provide some guidelines in the University Catalog. Any grading consequences for non-attendance or non-participation, must be clearly articulated in the syllabus. Faculty members will be asked from time-to-time for a student’s last date of attendance or participation in a class (also in light of federal reporting guidelines), and therefore, the faculty member is expected to have a means of accurately recording this information.

MISSING STUDENTS DURING CENSUS ATTENDANCE PERIOD – If a student never engages in the class during the two week census period, do not stop with only posting non-attendance in the Faculty Portal. Also bring this to the attention of the Registrar’s Office by emailing registrar@asbury.edu.

Please note: If a student is on your class roster in the Faculty Portal but is not attending, the student is still enrolled in your class and has not withdrawn. Only students with posted grades of “W” have withdrawn.

FACULTY ROLE IN RETENTION – If a student is not attending class, make every attempt to contact the student by email and phone to re-engage the student and learn about the situation. Students are more likely to respond to you as the professor than to another Asbury University contact. If the student does not respond to your contacts, please notify the Registrar’s Office for traditional undergraduate students, the graduate program for graduate students, or the APS program for APS students.

EXCESSIVE ABSENCES –If a student misses an excessive number of classes, please check on the student and also notify the Registrar’s Office for traditional undergraduate students, the graduate program for graduate students, or the APS program for APS students. Please report to the Registrar’s Office students who miss the equivalent to a full week of class (consecutive days) as well as any other irregular attendance situations of which we should be aware.

REACH360 & EARLY ALERT (S.O.A.R.) FOR TRADITIONAL UNDERGRADUATE – Professors utilize the Reach360 retention system, accessed through the Faculty Portal, to notify the Retention Specialist of student information and observations, sometimes by responding to retention surveys and other times by reporting student concerns, such as excessive absences. All professor reports are logged in Reach360 for the student’s circle of care team to view and then determine how best to act.

Each professor is considered to be a vital part of a student’s circle of care each semester. Information shared by a professor is highly valued; often a professor is the first one to reach out to a challenged student. We recognize that faculty interaction with Asbury students is key to student success.

The Student Opportunity And Retention (SOAR) committee meets confidentially to determine the best way to support traditional undergraduate students, by connecting the student to a person already present in the life of the student, such as a Resident Director or Athletic Coach, who can also check-in on the student on a more personal level. This person’s aim is to ask how the student is doing, offer help where needed, and make certain the student is aware of campus resources, with the ultimate goal of academic re-engagement in the classroom.

It is very important that traditional undergraduate students receive some graded work from the instructor prior to mid-term in order to gauge their progress and the instructor’s expectations. It is preferred that some graded work be returned to the student as early as the fourth week. Early feedback is a positive element in learning and also in lessening student anxiety (especially for freshman).

Faculty are required to report any low mid-term grades (C, C-, D, F) for traditional undergraduate students on the Faculty Portal, and are encouraged to report all mid-term grades. For Faculty Portal entry instructions, view the IT Services document on the website titled How to Enter Midterm Grades in Portal. Faculty may also add grading comments at that time, which are viewable by the student on the Student Portal. The Registrar’s Office will send out a reminder when it is time to enter the mid-term grades (the mid-term grade due date is also in the academic calendar). It is essential that you provide opportunities for students to receive feedback on their work prior to the calculation of mid-term grades so that students have an accurate reflection of their standing in your courses.

FERPA protects student privacy in relation to student education records, giving students the right to inspect and review their education records, to have some control over the disclosure of information from their education records, and to seek to amend incorrect education records. School officials, including faculty members, may not disclose personally identifiable information about students nor permit inspection of their records without their written permission, unless such action is covered by certain exceptions permitted by the Act. Education records are all records that directly relate to a student, maintained in any form, including email and electronic records.

When a student turns 18 or attends an institution of higher education, these rights transfer from the parents to the student. While faculty members may answer questions from parents about general class policies, syllabus standards or assignments, faculty members cannot answer questions about a specific student’s grades, attendance, or schedule (or release personally identifiable information) to parents or any other individual without the student’s written consent. Asbury recommends that if the student is in attendance with a faculty member when you have these conversations, you begin the conversation by asking the student to given written permission for the conversation to include the other individual, and that you keep this permission on file. For more details, please reference the "FERPA: What you need to know as faculty and staff document."

Traditional undergraduate students must take final examinations within the official final examination period. All general education courses must have a final examination or culminating event in the hour scheduled. This period usually extends from Monday at 8 a.m. to Thursday at 5 p.m. of the final examination week. The final examination schedule is located on the Registrar area of the website. No examinations (including final exams) or tests may be given during the final week of classes (the week prior to final exam week). To apply for a change of examination time within this period, students should contact their instructors and the chair of the department within which the course in question is offered.

Final grades are entered electronically on the Faculty Portal. For Faculty Portal entry instructions, view the IT Services document on the website titled Submitting Final Grades In the Faculty Portal.

Final grade due dates are firm and faculty members are expected to meet the grading due date, for student status decisions await final grade entry and must be made immediately. For undergraduates, final grades are due the Tuesday immediately after finals conclude (5-day grading period). For graduate and most APS classes, a one-week (7-day) grading period applies.

Please calculate and enter final grades carefully since they contribute to academic and financial aid status decisions and are posted to the permanent academic record.  While it is possible to change grades, it is an awkward process to be avoided. Once a final grade is entered in the Faculty Portal, it may only be changed by requesting the update through the Registrar’s Office. Typically grade changes are requested and approved only for calculation errors.

Final “F” Grades:

“F” – The grade of “F” is awarded for a student who completed the class (engaged academically in the class until near the end of the class) but failed in accordance with syllabus standards, whether due to academic performance or irregular attendance/participation.

“FN” – The grade of “FN” is awarded to a student who completely stopped engaging in any academic related activity (ceased attendance/participation) sometime prior to the end of the class/term and consequently failed to complete the course objectives. The “FN” grade is not awarded for spotty attendance, missing assignments or missing the final exam, provided the student engaged in some academic manner into the last weeks of the class.

• Should an instructor award the “FN” grade, the instructor will be prompted to first record (from their own grading records) the student’s last date of academic engagement, i.e., the last date the student attended class, or completed a paper, project, quiz, exam, etc. This last date of academic engagement is necessary for Financial Aid compliance.
• The internal “FN” grade will translate to an “F” grade on the official and unofficial transcript.

A temporary grade of incomplete ("I") may be granted by the Dean of each College or School in which the course resides. An incomplete may be granted at the instructor’s recommendation due to extenuating circumstances that interrupt the semester, such as medical crisis or equipment breakdown.  Quality of work or failure to meet deadlines is not a criterion for an incomplete and will not be granted on such basis. A student seeking an incomplete in more than one course may only request approval by the Provost. Faculty or students anticipating the need for an incomplete should contact the appropriate Dean of the College/School in which the course resides on or before the last week of the class.  The end date of a course may not be extended outside of an approved incomplete. An incomplete cannot be initiated by the student after the course’s end date.

Incomplete Process steps:

Step 1) Contact the Dean of the College/School in which the course resides to request approval of the incomplete and copy the Registrar on the approval request. Students should contact you prior to the end date of the course to request an incomplete, permitting you to contact the Dean in that same timeframe.

Step 2) If approved by your Dean and while the course grading window is open in the Faculty Portal, enter the incomplete request in the final grades area of the Portal. You will set the coursework deadline (max is 60 days from the last date of class, though many set earlier deadlines). This submission prompts the official Incomplete Request, which will go to the Registrar, copied to you and to the student.

Step 3) The Registrar or Provost will then approve the Incomplete request in the system (provided Dean approval has been submitted), and auto-notifications will be sent to the faculty member and the student. The notification will include the incomplete course work due date. The grading due date is always one week after the course work due date.

      Once an incomplete is granted, it is the student’s responsibility to contact the instructor and make satisfactory arrangements to complete the outstanding work.  A student who receives an "I" must complete the work by the respective deadline. A grade of “F” may be recorded for students who do not complete the outstanding work by the deadline.

      The final grade (to replace the “I” grade) for the incomplete is sent by reporting form (or email) from the faculty member to the Registrar’s Office (registrar@asbury.edu) by the incomplete grading deadline. The Registrar’s Office posts the reported final grade to the student’s academic record and notifies the student and faculty member that the final grade has been posted.

Incompletes for all courses may be granted in two circumstances:

1. The Provost or Registrar is contacted directly by a medical authority with regard to a student who has experienced a physical or emotional crisis.
2. The Provost or Registrar is contacted directly by a faculty member/s with regard to a student.

Final course grades may be changed in the case of miscalculation of points. Re-evaluation of a student's work or late submission of work by a student are not normal grounds for changing a final course grade. Within 30 days of the beginning of the next semester (not including summer), an instructor may change a final course grade by filing the appropriate form with the Registrar or Vice Provost. The instructor and the responsible department chair or dean must approve this change. After 30 days of the beginning of the next semester, an instructor desiring to change a final course grade, must file such a request with the Vice Provost. Decisions of the Vice Provost will be considered final.

All students completing a course for credit are required to complete an online Course Evaluation at the end of the course.  Participation by all students is important for our continued accreditation. The University will provide instructions via your campus email on how to complete the evaluation about two weeks before the course ends. Student compliance with the request to do course evaluations can be challenging, and faculty members are encouraged to find ways to increase participation rates for students to complete the surveys.  Listed here are some examples of what some faculty members have used for incentives to participate:                                                                                     

• Give participation points for the day’s work when a student completes the course evaluation.
• Have a specific set of points or percentage associated with completing the course evaluation.
• Give bonus points for participation.

If you have questions regarding your course evaluations, please contact IT Services, helpdesk@asbury.edu.(revised 07/20/2020)