APC070531-5.3a 5.3a: Appendix A

University Policies Regarding Records of Poor Academic Performance

This chart offers an overview of the practices of universities, as well as two American universities included as comparisons, with regard to records of poor academic performance. Boise State Ohio State McMaster Lakehead Nipissing Waterloo Ryerson Windsor U ofT Brock Trent York U of

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If a course is repeated, does the original attempt including the Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes mark usually remain on the transcript in your university?1 If a student returns to the university after being asked No to university- withdraw for academic No No No No No No No No No Yes** Yes*** wide reasons, can s/he start anew policy with a “clean” transcript record?2 If a student decides to change majors after not doing well in one program, can s/he start No No No No No No No No No No Yes** No over with a “clean” new transcript in3 the new program? * Faculty of Arts & Science ** Fresh Start ***Grade Exclusion Policy

1 The “Yes” is significantly nuanced, because the higher mark is often used to calculate the average. 2 There are several exceptions to the “no” answers. 3 Some “No” answers nuanced: See Lakehead, for example.

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Notes:

1. If a course is repeated, does the original attempt including the mark usually remain on the transcript in your university?

York University - Jillian Oinonen, Assistant Registrar, Information Systems & Publications: The original attempt including the mark remains on the transcript. However, the original course mark also receives a grade qualifier of "NCR" (no credit retained). The original grade remains on the transcript, and the qualifier is added beside the grade.

Trent University - Susan Salisbury, University Registrar: If a course is repeated, both attempts remain on the transcript. The sessional and cumulative averages, however, use the higher mark (regardless of when the course was taken).

Lakehead University - Anna Foshay, University Registrar: If a course is repeated, the original attempt including the mark remains on the transcript, but are not included in the averages.

2. If a student returns to the university after being asked to withdraw for academic reasons, can she/he start anew with a “clean” transcript record?

York University: There is no University-wide policy in regards to the “clean” transcript record, however, some of our Faculties do have "first year forgiveness" internal policies. Under certain circumstances, students can petition to their Faculty to have their first year’s worth of courses removed from their records. Joanne Duklas, University Registrar, also wrote back, mentioning that they would be interested in receiving results of our review if possible as they are wrestling with some of these questions as well.

Links to Senate and university policies: http://www.yorku.ca/univsec/policies/ http://www.yorku.ca/secretariat/policies/document.php?document=92

Nipissing University- Denis Lawrence, Registrar: The Registrar’s Office follow the transcript guidelines that do not recommend changing a student's transcript. They will re-admit, they will allow changes to majors and sometimes they will agree not to count certain courses in the average but they remain on the transcript.

Brock University – Barbara Davis, Registrar: The original attempt, including the mark, remains on the transcript but is marked "DUPL" (duplicate). The second attempt always counts, regardless of whether the final grade was higher or lower than the first attempt. If a student returns to the university after being asked to withdraw for academic reasons, s/he cannot start anew with a “clean” transcript record, although the decision code to indicate academic suspension or debarment no longer appears on the transcript in any historical way.

University of Waterloo - Kenneth A. Lavigne, Registrar: If a student returns to the university after being asked to withdraw for academic reasons, or if he/she decides to change majors after not doing well in one program, s/he cannot start over with a “clean” new transcript. However, the university would suppress the failed or really poor grades from average calculations and credit failure/counts but the entries remain on the transcript.

Lakehead University - Anna Foshay, University Registrar: If a student returns to the university after being asked to withdraw for academic reasons, s/he can not start anew with a "clean" transcript record. His or her previous grades remain on record.

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Ohio State University- Alan Kalish: Students who have a CPHR under a 2.0 or who have been dismissed from the university may want to petition to use Fresh Start. This will eliminate any deficiency points that you may have earned previously and will let you start at Ohio State with a clean CPHR (0.00.) If you have not been enrolled at the university 20 or more consecutive quarters (5 or more years), you may petition for the Fresh Start Rule. While all courses will remain on your permanent record, only courses in which you received a C- or higher will be counted for credit. Other course work will not be counted for credit, towards any requirement, or toward graduation. A student will return to Ohio State with a recalculated Cumulative Point Hour Ratio of 0.00. The student must complete a minimum of three quarters and 45 credit hours after using the Fresh Start Rule before you are eligible to graduate. (Grade calculation based on maximum of 4.0)

Boise State University - Susan Shadle: In regards to the issue of grade exclusion, students may petition to exclude from GPA calculation any grades earned at Boise State University or at another institution in one or two semesters in which student’s GPA is less than 2.0. The student must meet all of the following criteria: 1- He/she must not have been a student at any institution of higher education for at least five years, or at least eight years must have elapsed since he/she received the grades which are wish to have excluded. 2- After being re-admitted and before applying for grade exclusion, the student must complete 12 consecutive credits at Boise State University with a GPA of 2.50 or higher, or 24 consecutive credits with a GPA of 2.25 or higher. 3- The student has not previously been granted grade exclusion at Boise State University. If a student requests grade exclusion, he/she must have all grades excluded in the semester or semesters chosen; he/she may not choose individual grades. If the student wishes to exclude grades from two semesters, he/she must petition for both semesters at the same time (on the same form). All grades, past and present, will remain on the transcript, but the excluded grades will not count toward graduation or be calculated in your GPA. However, all grades, including those that have been excluded, will be used to calculate graduation honors. A student may receive grade exclusion only once. If the student possesses a post-secondary degree or certificate, he/she may not have any grades earned prior to receiving that degree or certificate excluded from your GPA. (Grade calculation based on maximum of 4.0)

3. If a student decides to change majors after not doing well in one program, can s/he start over with a “clean” new transcript in the new program?

Ryerson University – Keith C. Alnwick Registrar: In regards to the third question, if a student decides to change majors after not doing well in one program, s/he cannot start over with a “clean” new transcript in the new program, but the GPA calculation begins fresh.

Trent University - Susan Salisbury, University Registrar: My understanding as a Registrar is that all courses attempted and completed, regardless of the grade, remain on the student's transcript. To remove courses and grades would, in my mind, constitute a falsification of the academic record. However, there are occasions where our petitions committee will consider a petition for a retroactive withdrawal from one or more courses, if the student can present evidence of extenuating circumstances that caused their poor performance in the course. An instance might be an event that occurred within the student's family (a divorce, for instance) where the student may have been impacted negatively by outside events. In these cases, the course(s) and grades would be removed from the transcript.

The national registrars’ group undertook a project a few years ago to develop a Canadian transcript guide; you can find the document electronically at: http://www.arucc.unb.ca/docsandpubs.htm. Greg Marcotte, Director of Registrarial Services at Windsor, probably has a hard copy of the document. You might find some additional information in there that might be of use to your committee.

The other issue that your committee might be interested in pursuing is the regulation around the last date to drop a course within a session. We have had some discussions here at Trent as to why this date is established in the first place, as it occasions a significant amount of work at certain points in the academic year with students who failed to withdraw by the deadline and are now faced with a possibly failing grade in the course. Most universities in Ontario have deadlines for withdrawing from courses without academic

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penalty, and are usually around the same time (early November for fall term courses, early March for winter term courses, and mid February for full year courses). What often occurs is that a student thinks s/he is doing OK in a course but after the deadline receive further feedback on his or her performance OR find that the efforts to try to keep up on one course impact their performance in other courses. In some cases, the student is effectively withdrawing themselves from the course by not attending lectures or handing in work, but s/he is still officially registered in the course. We have contemplated moving the last day to withdraw to the last day of the TERM, so that students may withdraw before the exam period starts, but there is still considerable discussion to be had as not everyone agrees on what the best policy might be.

Lakehead University - Anna Foshay, University Registrar: Sometimes students will apply to another program at which point only those courses with a "C" and that are relevant to the new program are counted.

Personal Experiences and Anecdotes:

Nicola Simmons (Brock University PhD Student)- Thank goodness my (first time round) university drop-out did not show on my transcript - because I left early enough in the year. I know of gifted students who fail year one - and then cannot apply to some other institutions to programmes perhaps better suited to them. Timing, I think, is everything - no-one would ever guess that my transcripts based on my work in my undergrad, MEd and PhD were from the same person who just made the cut off in grade 13 and dropped out of first year. And yet - in talking to a Dean (not my discipline, not my institution) who had tracked students for whom they made exceptions in acceptance criteria: those students didn't make it in the end. I'm prepared to accept that I might be an anomaly :-)

Kathryn Alexander - I was a late bloomer and incompleted courses and dropped out of my local community college because of personal issues and anxiety around essay writing blocks. I didn't attempt re-admission for almost ten years because I was so afraid I wouldn't finish a course. A kind academic counselor helped me "repackage my transcripts" when my arts-based university was shut down mid-way through a professional certificate program. Like Nicola, I gained admission status to a good university where I eventually graduated with a PhD in Education and a focus on academic literacy, writing and social justice issues. I am aware that there is always a small percentage of "problem" students who violate ethical, academic honesty or personal conduct criteria in their departments and re-surface in other departments after probationary periods. Our institution is trying to develop some new guidelines to deal with these rare students who nonetheless can take up 80% of our energy and resources. I do not know if transcripts can tell the whole story, so I think there is a working committee looking at "richer" documentation like a student dossier/portfolio with room for relevant documentation that still respects the student and protects the rights of the individual and the institution ( and faculty and other students who have to deal with problem students). After all, what does it mean to advocate for life-long learning in our institutions if we only look at the rehearsal stages of youngsters in their fledgling years.

Rocky Wallbaum, Academic Research Officer: The college has re-directed my career towards Institutional Research after more than a decade with Professional Development. Then comes this post by Nicola and a chance to voice an opinion, informed by personal experience.

I quit high school at the beginning of Grade 11 because I figured if I kept falling asleep during class, then I was wasting the resources of the institution, the teacher, my classmates, and me. After several attempts to try to complete grade 12, and a year sponging off friends/family and another year working in a Pizza restaurant, I was admitted as an 'adult student' and entered a B.A. Pre-law degree program. After disappointing results, I decided to change my career goal from Politics (who wants to be Prime Minister anyway?) to Science, but found I lacked every high school science course. I studied , and at grade 10, 11 and 12 levels in one year and was named to the Deans' List. Later in the 80's, I achieved top marks in Alberta on the Journeyman Cook exam and earned a Bachelor of Education degree

Page 4 of 5 Appendix A with distinction from the U of A. I successfully completed my Masters degree in Adult Education in the 90's (ST. F-X), and am starting a Post-masters' certificate in Institutional Research from Florida State University. To reach our students, education needs to make it easier for them to get into programs WHEN THEY ARE READY. And who cares if the next Einstein (or Alfred E. Neumann for that matter) was a consistently brilliant scholar from day one, if she or he finds fulfillment in studying (and can pay the rate - more about making it easier to access funding in another rant at a later date)?

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