Dear Faculty Colleagues,
This is one of several messages that will go out over the next few weeks as we prepare for and begin the spring semester. We hope that these “resources for the semester” notes are indeed helpful. In this note, we discuss a few items that may be useful as you finalize your syllabi for the upcoming term. Another note in the near future will provide some information on teaching during yet another COVID-19-impacted semester.
CITLS, in partnership with other offices and programs on campus, is launching a centralized Spaces site to help students access academic resources all in one place. (It is linked in the header for this section.) Students can self enroll on the site and are encouraged to bookmark and refer to it throughout their college experience. Faculty members also are welcome to self enroll on the site; see link below. The link to the site will be displayed in the header area in the student view of Moodle starting in the spring 2022 semester. This site also will be shared with students via Lafayette Today closer to the start of the semester. We encourage you to include a link to the site in your course syllabi and with your advisees.
Faculty are encouraged to step through the site with their students and share information about it:
Below is an example of how the site might be mentioned in a course syllabus:
Student Academic Resources: This is a centralized site for Lafayette students containing resources on college transition support, accessibility services, tutoring, health and well-being, advising and registration, technology help, library services, student funds, and more. You are encouraged to self enroll in this site and bookmark it for future reference.
Final examinations
We remind everyone that section 7.5 of the Faculty Handbook has rules and guidance on the administration of examinations and other important academic exercises. Paragraph 7.5.5 states that final examinations should be given when the registrar schedules them during the final examination period as indicated on the academic calendar, and should not be given during the last week of classes. Further, paragraph 7.5.7 states, “No fifty-minute or longer examinations are to be administered during the fourteenth week of each semester.” In between these two items in the Faculty Handbook is the reminder that course schedules should be mindful of “student-observed religious holidays which may not fall within the regular holiday schedule of the College.” A list (or at least a “small sampling” as they say on the linked site) of religious holidays can be found on the Interfaith Calendar provided by the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. Students may also receive a dean’s excuse for religious observances from their class dean or from the College chaplain.
Everything else!
As always, the standard requirements for syllabi (things like your grading and attendance policies, the federal credit hour statement, course learning outcomes, etc.) do remain in place.
Tracie Addy
Tim Cox
Markus Dubischar
Alex Hendrickson
Kara Howe
John Meier