Handbook

RECORD KEEPING AND GRADUATION CHECKS

Advice from David Lindstrom on some common trouble spots:

Every two or three years a student gets caught by this requirement. English majors are held for three separate GPA requirements:

2.0 cumulative GPA (all courses)

2.0 in all English courses, and

2.0 in upper-division English courses.

Until the GUIDE gets run in the junior year, the University will not calculate the English averages, so if you have a student who collects D's and F's, do these calculations early so that deficient students have some warning.

MINIMUM 45 CREDITS IN UPPER-DIVISION COURSES

Students concentrating in teaching certification or in creative writing and students in the regular major who do not elect a foreign language for the second field fulfill this requirement automatically: 30 cr. in English, 3 in CO-301, 12 in the second field. Students who elect a foreign language, however, can fulfill all the slots on the check sheet and still be 12 upper-division credits short: they must plan to pursue their language study even unto the upper division, to take advanced courses to fulfill University Studies requirements, or take extra courses in any subject.

Students who complete our column C, which is the Department's specification of the College's curricular requirements, which are themselves heavier than University Studies, will thereby fulfill University Studies requirements. The courses have to be approved ones, and the only reliable (if not quite complete) guide is the Department's GREEN SHEETS. For University Studies minimums (7 cr. in sciences, 6 in humanities, 6 in social sciences, and the subcategories of logic and critical thinking) count only courses that appear on the "A" lists on the Green Sheets--unless you have prior, written approval from the Provost's office. And they are sticklers. Let me sign on to your request. For the additional credits in each of these categories, again use the Green Sheets as your guide, but Ward or I can sometimes approve substitutions ourselves. The key here is: if you don't see it on the Green Sheets, it probably won't work out. So talk with somebody long before it is time for the graduation check.

While up to 6 credits from Column C may also count as part of a student's second field, English courses may not be counted twice. That is, one Shakespeare course cannot count also for the Medieval/Renaissance requirement. The only exception to this rule is that students concentrating in teacher certification may use an E-470 to satisfy one of the upper-division elective distributional requirements.

While some of our advising addresses our students' developing interests in literary study, in career opportunities, or in graduate study, advice that depends on only a general view of a student's strengths and interests, often we have to know what we're talking about--as when we try to say, "You have only 18 more credits to graduation." Yes, there is a sense in which students are supposed to know what they've taken and what they still need, but unless we plan to refuse to discuss such an issue, then we have to have reliable data and that means keeping meticulous records of students' progress toward graduation, that is, of their fulfilling the demands of the appropriate check sheet.

For your own sake, you need a system that is efficient, so that you are not forever searching through a student's chronologically ordered "unofficial transcript." For Ward's sake and for mine, as we often advise your students in your absence, your system needs to be PERFECTLY PLAIN to someone who has no "key" to your private system.

I want to be emphatic about clarity. When, for whatever reason, one of your advisees defaults to me, or to anybody else, and I can't read your checksheet easily, I have only two choices: send the student back to you to construct order out of chaos (this gives the student the runaround and embarrasses you) or reconstruct the whole checksheet myself (this takes time).

Ward and I agree that the easiest foolproof system is to enter the course grades from the transcripts that we get each semester (discard prior ones at that point): the grade shows completion of work, as opposed to good intentions, solemn promises, outright lies, and premature withdrawals.

When there are alternatives (as with Shakespeare or the major author), indicate what course was taken. In the case of a 470, identify the subject.

When there are slots to fill from a variety of courses (as with the upper-division English electives or the University Studies requirements), record both the course number and the grade.

Then you will be reminded to check the course against the relevant lists and the next time you look at the check sheet you will know what you were counting or crediting before.

Then you will have some chance to see errors that you've made and correct them.

Then you will be able quickly to evaluate a student's strength.

And, if you've recorded the information about the English electives systematically, that is, if you fill in the first slot only with an Early course, the second slot only with a Modern course, and so forth, then you will be able to see at a glance what categories a student still needs to satisfy. This can't take much more than a minute per student per semester.

This checksheet record should always be more accurate than the GUIDE and will be your easiest basis for cross checking the GUIDE's claims against reality.