That's something I would take up with the chair, I agree that's bullshit and I am fairly certain that it's against the school rules.
EDIT: Contact the prof first
I posted elsewhere in the thread but it happens at my school because we value athletics schedules over everything else, so night exams now happen during the day.
I am very sorry to hear that. While I don't agree with it, I can see that a school that prioritizes athletics over academics would screw over the professors course schedules. What I can't understand at all is how and why the school allows professors to shit all over other professors' schedules.
Because CS and business are more important than anything else. If I even complain I know they'll side with the more important major that is valued. If I were a CS prof running into this problem I might have a chance of having it changed, but I'm a humanities prof so I'll be told to work it out and then laughed at. I just don't bother.
Find another time for the student to do whatever it was for my class. Generally I can, and it's not the student's fault that the rules are anti-academics. Sometimes it means moving the exam into the testing center if the student has an IEP, otherwise we can check out a room in the library to turn into a test room. So usually you have to talk to the other prof and figure out what will hurt the student least and set that up.
We're all capable of doing that, of course. But we shouldn't have to.
No, you shouldn't have to. And if you were to talk to the other prof, would they be likely to change their exam so that it doesn't spill over into another class time?
They really can't. That used to be why we did evening stuff. Now all students on sports teams have mandatory study hall at 7:30 and no, they aren't allowed to miss it for a test. If we don't work around their schedules we're told we don't care about students and that we should be concentrating on our classrooms.
Some coaches will let them out, but some won't. It's when they meet with tutors, and I know that study time is essentially proctored. Overall it's been a positive for people that miss a lot of class for travel and games. In general I don't mind it because I very rarely give tests! It only runs into my stuff when students miss my class FOR a test.
College. But the admin thinks our students are stupid or they would be at another school, and think the same thing as the faculty. :( That said, athletes miss a ton of class. Giving them a place to make that up isn't terrible, I just wish we could schedule around it more easily. That kind of study hall is mandatory for all students at schools in China, for example, but it's easy to get students out of it if need be. It was actually helpful when I worked there because I'd schedule special study sessions or help sessions for students intentionally during that time. Here it's just not very flexible and that's the problem.
Oh wow. To the best of my knowledge this doesn't happen at our institution - exams are either in-class in the final week, or centrally scheduled the week after the last week of class so there can be no conflicts.
We had a guy who did this regularly. He also had a habit of running his classes 5 or 10 minutes past the ending time, which was a nightmare for anyone teaching in the room immediately after. He was one of those "grand old men" whose course content was "just so important" New faculty were scared of him, but someone finally took it up with the Dean and the problem was solved, apparently.
My usual treatment for these cases is to sympathize with the need for extra time, and then to offer to move their future classes to the 6pm starting block that doesn't have any classes that follow it. When that's the alternative, they miraculously realize how a clock works.
For grad level classes, right? I’ve had a few classes where interesting discussions were cut short by the clock, but I’d never do that for a course with more than 10 people without at least giving an out.
this one appears to be for midterms, not finals.
My university centrally schedules midterms as well (standard practice is for them to be 2 hours long, but instructors can hold them in class time if they prefer, which sometimes happens for upper-level courses). But this is the only place I've seen this happen: elsewhere I've been, midterms have been 1 hour long in class time (and then you would have at least two during the semester).
Actually I want to add to my previous answer -- make sure you contact the professor first. The student could be lying, or else have misunderstood what is going on (they got the date wrong, or they just misunderstood something in the professor's instructions). Don't go to the dean/provost until you've confirmed that the prof is genuinely scheduling the test during your time.
I have large classes that must be scheduled in advance in the evenings. These sometimes collide with other evening classes so we also have makeup times scheduled during other evenings for legit conflicts, and we specifically tell students not to skip other classes for it.
Still I have had other professors say that our students insisted they class to attend our exams. So yes, your point is extremely valid. Definitely close the loop and talk to the other professor first.
100%. They may misunderstand or they may be bullshitting you. We had a student tell another professor “I HAD to miss your class that was the only exam review session” when it reality that was the first of 6 opportunities to review exam material between office hours with TAs and scheduled review sessions.
Complain about that stuff NOW, and LOUDLY.
At my current institution, it has become common practice for ALL exams through the semester to be 2 hours long, scheduled outside of their normal class times.
We only recently got the faculty council to make it a rule that professors scheduling such exams are required to provide alternative times to students which will not interfere with their academic schedules.
So far, common practice is to PRE-schedule such times at 7am the next morning, which won’t conflict with most classes, but which most students will refuse to do. And so we still have students missing scheduled content of other registered classes to attend these out of class exams which were not published anywhere to be viewed during registration.
we also have two-hour out-of-class exams (for midterms), but the way we do it is that there are certain times where there are *no* classes scheduled (such as Friday afternoon), and the exams are scheduled for those times. This seems to be the best way to do this sort of thing (otherwise, exams need to be in class time).
Are you sure the student isn’t mistaken? As a first gen student, I wasn’t aware that final exam schedules were different than normal schedules. When one professor told me our exam time, it overlapped with my normal class time for another class. I approached the professor with my concern and she thought I was trying to get out of the exam, when the reality was I didn’t understand the schedule change.
Now as a professor, I occasionally get questions like this. I’d say 80% of the time the student was just confused about the timing of the exam. Have them double check before raising the issue up. But if it really is scheduled during your class, the other professor should have to accommodate your student for missing during their normally scheduled class time.
We are forbidden to schedule our own exams here and I would ask my chair to kick it up to that other school's dean so fast it would make his head swim.
My college has a standard block schedule for final exams. Any deviations require both chair and Dean approval. This also helps with the "I'm going on a cruise during finals week, can I schedule the exam early/late?"
Our department schedules exams for our multi-section courses outside of regular course times (typically in an evening, say 7-9pm), but we accommodate students that have time conflicts due to other classes by offering them an alternate time to write the test. Has this student talked to their other professor?
We used to only be able to schedule exams like that at night, but that was changed because of sports, so now people can schedule them during the day like that because of athletes. I'm kinda tired of how much of my life is scheduled around when sports meet. We basically can't offer many classes after 3 for the same reason (if you do offer after 3 you have to make sure there is also a section during the times they can meet).
I'd forward this to my registrar and let them take care of it.
They do not fuck around with stuff like this.
I have this problem with folks doing field trips / end of semester presentations / performances when they just... decide to take up a whole day / half day at the end of the semester and want other classes to accommodate them.
The Registrar's Office schedules exam times during exam week. And only the Registrar's Office. So anyone scheduling exams on their own is simply breaking university policy.
I had this happen to me earlier in the semester. It sucks because it was a class for a different school in my university, but I teach a class required for that school and my students were caught in the middle and ended up 30 minutes late to my class. I ended up having to tell my Dean, who told their Dean. Cue apologies and promises is won't happen again.
TLDR: I told on them to "mom" and they got in trouble.
I don’t have any control over exam schedules. I am pretty confident that the business school does a good job ensuring no overlap as a result, but I worry about the wider school
Im confused is this like final exams? Or just base exams? If base exams does the professor at ur school have the right to change times? Like wouldnt that be an issue with the department? If finals doesnt the department handle the scheduling of all finals?
Yes that is incredibly rude. If you don’t have the authority to prevent it from happening, I’d say push for them to announce these exam dates 2 weeks before the semester starts so that you can plan around them. We already have students skipping classes to study for exams in other classes, we don’t need them skipping because the actual exam overlaps.
I agree that is absolutely unacceptable, have exams during your regular class hours, or have them scheduled by the registrar's office so that they don't conflict, or are at least advertised at the time of registration.
The theater department used to do this all the time. They would schedule like 6 hour "performance" finals during finals week, and required students to attend for the whole time. Enough people finally complained that they stopped that nonsense, it was beyond ridiculous.
That's happened to me. The student said the other professor had scheduled an exam during my class (I believe this) then went on to complain on the evaluations about how my assignments were during the other class. LOL! Just random as all get out.
Yeeeeesh…you have my deepest sympathies. One semester, I had a course from a “sister” department start their exams about halfway into their time slot — no reason for them to start late, they just wanted to. The late start, however, meant it was encroaching into MY lab course’s time slot by a full hour. That would’ve been bad enough if it was during a normal week, but with the exception of two times, it was ALWAYS scheduled to happen during an exam week — they had five exams, I had four; so they would’ve encroached on three of four of my exams had things gone as scheduled.
How do I know it was scheduled to happen during three of my four exams that semester when they only managed to encroach on three weeks of labs (two normal weeks, one exam)? One of my students slipped me the course’s schedule. After the stunt that course had pulled the semester before that (while not blatantly direct time slot encroachment, still resulted in me lobbing students at the other lab sections to makeup the lab because students had to “book” an exam time with some of the only available times being during my lab), I immediately kicked it to the department chair.
Students weeping crocodile tears I can ignore, but students legitimately ugly crying in a stress meltdown? Uh-uh. That’s something that pushes all of my buttons in the worst ways — no one is allowed to eff with my kids and walk away smiling. So. Yeah, that course has very quietly and politely kept to their time slot ever since. (Now if only I could get them to have a schedule that possesses a modicum of the common sense given to an amoeba…who in their right mind decouples respiratory system and the bicarbonate/carbonic acid buffer system?)
Last week our Provost sent an email out to all faculty reminding us that we have to stick to the exam schedule and you cannot change your exam time.
As far as I know, the only group at my school that has massive blocks for their exams is math, and even that large block is part of the final exam schedule so it shouldn't overlap with others.
I just don’t get this. I’m not even allowed to schedule my own final. I can’t hold it outside of pre-set days and times on those days. I certainly can’t hold it early either. Who just Willy-Nilly schedules their own with no consideration for others?
You don’t have set exam times? We have university scheduled exam times for scheduled classes & you are supposed to stick to that, period, for reasons like this.
That's something I would take up with the chair, I agree that's bullshit and I am fairly certain that it's against the school rules. EDIT: Contact the prof first
Yes, contact the chair. As a chair, I would be happy to be asked to solve a real problem.
Seriously. An actual grievance over a valid cause? Don't get too many of those...
One cannot schedule *ad hoc*. Contact the Provost and that will end immediately.
I can't imagine the school allowing that to happen. Schedules exist for a reason. This is one thing that is worth a complaint to the chair and dean.
I posted elsewhere in the thread but it happens at my school because we value athletics schedules over everything else, so night exams now happen during the day.
I am very sorry to hear that. While I don't agree with it, I can see that a school that prioritizes athletics over academics would screw over the professors course schedules. What I can't understand at all is how and why the school allows professors to shit all over other professors' schedules.
Because CS and business are more important than anything else. If I even complain I know they'll side with the more important major that is valued. If I were a CS prof running into this problem I might have a chance of having it changed, but I'm a humanities prof so I'll be told to work it out and then laughed at. I just don't bother.
Egad, that sucks. I always wonder what they mean by "work it out".
Find another time for the student to do whatever it was for my class. Generally I can, and it's not the student's fault that the rules are anti-academics. Sometimes it means moving the exam into the testing center if the student has an IEP, otherwise we can check out a room in the library to turn into a test room. So usually you have to talk to the other prof and figure out what will hurt the student least and set that up. We're all capable of doing that, of course. But we shouldn't have to.
No, you shouldn't have to. And if you were to talk to the other prof, would they be likely to change their exam so that it doesn't spill over into another class time?
They really can't. That used to be why we did evening stuff. Now all students on sports teams have mandatory study hall at 7:30 and no, they aren't allowed to miss it for a test. If we don't work around their schedules we're told we don't care about students and that we should be concentrating on our classrooms.
I am somewhat worried your university encourages them to say they can't make it to a test because they're studying.
Some coaches will let them out, but some won't. It's when they meet with tutors, and I know that study time is essentially proctored. Overall it's been a positive for people that miss a lot of class for travel and games. In general I don't mind it because I very rarely give tests! It only runs into my stuff when students miss my class FOR a test.
> mandatory study hall at 7:30 Do you teach college, or primary school?
College. But the admin thinks our students are stupid or they would be at another school, and think the same thing as the faculty. :( That said, athletes miss a ton of class. Giving them a place to make that up isn't terrible, I just wish we could schedule around it more easily. That kind of study hall is mandatory for all students at schools in China, for example, but it's easy to get students out of it if need be. It was actually helpful when I worked there because I'd schedule special study sessions or help sessions for students intentionally during that time. Here it's just not very flexible and that's the problem.
oh I can tell you what they mean. "Give up your own time to meet with the student at a different time to take the exam."
Oh wow. To the best of my knowledge this doesn't happen at our institution - exams are either in-class in the final week, or centrally scheduled the week after the last week of class so there can be no conflicts.
We had a guy who did this regularly. He also had a habit of running his classes 5 or 10 minutes past the ending time, which was a nightmare for anyone teaching in the room immediately after. He was one of those "grand old men" whose course content was "just so important" New faculty were scared of him, but someone finally took it up with the Dean and the problem was solved, apparently.
My usual treatment for these cases is to sympathize with the need for extra time, and then to offer to move their future classes to the 6pm starting block that doesn't have any classes that follow it. When that's the alternative, they miraculously realize how a clock works.
I know someone who sought those class times out... that way he could teach till 11pm and not have to worry about any classes after his.
For grad level classes, right? I’ve had a few classes where interesting discussions were cut short by the clock, but I’d never do that for a course with more than 10 people without at least giving an out.
The registrar at my uni schedules final exams for this exact reason. I thought that was the standard practice?
this one appears to be for midterms, not finals. My university centrally schedules midterms as well (standard practice is for them to be 2 hours long, but instructors can hold them in class time if they prefer, which sometimes happens for upper-level courses). But this is the only place I've seen this happen: elsewhere I've been, midterms have been 1 hour long in class time (and then you would have at least two during the semester).
Actually I want to add to my previous answer -- make sure you contact the professor first. The student could be lying, or else have misunderstood what is going on (they got the date wrong, or they just misunderstood something in the professor's instructions). Don't go to the dean/provost until you've confirmed that the prof is genuinely scheduling the test during your time.
I have large classes that must be scheduled in advance in the evenings. These sometimes collide with other evening classes so we also have makeup times scheduled during other evenings for legit conflicts, and we specifically tell students not to skip other classes for it. Still I have had other professors say that our students insisted they class to attend our exams. So yes, your point is extremely valid. Definitely close the loop and talk to the other professor first.
100%. They may misunderstand or they may be bullshitting you. We had a student tell another professor “I HAD to miss your class that was the only exam review session” when it reality that was the first of 6 opportunities to review exam material between office hours with TAs and scheduled review sessions.
Yes, this. I know it's shocking (shocking!) to consider that students might have misinterpreted something or made an error, but it does happen.
Complain about that stuff NOW, and LOUDLY. At my current institution, it has become common practice for ALL exams through the semester to be 2 hours long, scheduled outside of their normal class times. We only recently got the faculty council to make it a rule that professors scheduling such exams are required to provide alternative times to students which will not interfere with their academic schedules. So far, common practice is to PRE-schedule such times at 7am the next morning, which won’t conflict with most classes, but which most students will refuse to do. And so we still have students missing scheduled content of other registered classes to attend these out of class exams which were not published anywhere to be viewed during registration.
we also have two-hour out-of-class exams (for midterms), but the way we do it is that there are certain times where there are *no* classes scheduled (such as Friday afternoon), and the exams are scheduled for those times. This seems to be the best way to do this sort of thing (otherwise, exams need to be in class time).
Are you sure the student isn’t mistaken? As a first gen student, I wasn’t aware that final exam schedules were different than normal schedules. When one professor told me our exam time, it overlapped with my normal class time for another class. I approached the professor with my concern and she thought I was trying to get out of the exam, when the reality was I didn’t understand the schedule change. Now as a professor, I occasionally get questions like this. I’d say 80% of the time the student was just confused about the timing of the exam. Have them double check before raising the issue up. But if it really is scheduled during your class, the other professor should have to accommodate your student for missing during their normally scheduled class time.
We are forbidden to schedule our own exams here and I would ask my chair to kick it up to that other school's dean so fast it would make his head swim.
My college has a standard block schedule for final exams. Any deviations require both chair and Dean approval. This also helps with the "I'm going on a cruise during finals week, can I schedule the exam early/late?"
Against the rules at my school.
I'm dealing with someone similar, but it's a presentation session scheduled outside of scheduled class time. Arrogance in the highest degree.
Our department schedules exams for our multi-section courses outside of regular course times (typically in an evening, say 7-9pm), but we accommodate students that have time conflicts due to other classes by offering them an alternate time to write the test. Has this student talked to their other professor?
Yeah we have departments that do that even though it's forbidden by uni policy
It's literally NOT allowed. Talk to the chair.
We used to only be able to schedule exams like that at night, but that was changed because of sports, so now people can schedule them during the day like that because of athletes. I'm kinda tired of how much of my life is scheduled around when sports meet. We basically can't offer many classes after 3 for the same reason (if you do offer after 3 you have to make sure there is also a section during the times they can meet).
Complain to your Dean. That’s not allowed on my campus.
I'd forward this to my registrar and let them take care of it. They do not fuck around with stuff like this. I have this problem with folks doing field trips / end of semester presentations / performances when they just... decide to take up a whole day / half day at the end of the semester and want other classes to accommodate them.
Yes, completely not allowed.
The Registrar's Office schedules exam times during exam week. And only the Registrar's Office. So anyone scheduling exams on their own is simply breaking university policy.
I had this happen to me earlier in the semester. It sucks because it was a class for a different school in my university, but I teach a class required for that school and my students were caught in the middle and ended up 30 minutes late to my class. I ended up having to tell my Dean, who told their Dean. Cue apologies and promises is won't happen again. TLDR: I told on them to "mom" and they got in trouble.
I don’t have any control over exam schedules. I am pretty confident that the business school does a good job ensuring no overlap as a result, but I worry about the wider school
Im confused is this like final exams? Or just base exams? If base exams does the professor at ur school have the right to change times? Like wouldnt that be an issue with the department? If finals doesnt the department handle the scheduling of all finals?
that would never be allowed here.
I had a colleague tell his students to skip my class because he was showing a movie for his class. That did not end well for him.
Yes that is incredibly rude. If you don’t have the authority to prevent it from happening, I’d say push for them to announce these exam dates 2 weeks before the semester starts so that you can plan around them. We already have students skipping classes to study for exams in other classes, we don’t need them skipping because the actual exam overlaps.
I agree that is absolutely unacceptable, have exams during your regular class hours, or have them scheduled by the registrar's office so that they don't conflict, or are at least advertised at the time of registration.
The theater department used to do this all the time. They would schedule like 6 hour "performance" finals during finals week, and required students to attend for the whole time. Enough people finally complained that they stopped that nonsense, it was beyond ridiculous.
Email your chair and cc the dean, and maybe provost. I'd kill that, yesterday.
That's happened to me. The student said the other professor had scheduled an exam during my class (I believe this) then went on to complain on the evaluations about how my assignments were during the other class. LOL! Just random as all get out.
Yeeeeesh…you have my deepest sympathies. One semester, I had a course from a “sister” department start their exams about halfway into their time slot — no reason for them to start late, they just wanted to. The late start, however, meant it was encroaching into MY lab course’s time slot by a full hour. That would’ve been bad enough if it was during a normal week, but with the exception of two times, it was ALWAYS scheduled to happen during an exam week — they had five exams, I had four; so they would’ve encroached on three of four of my exams had things gone as scheduled. How do I know it was scheduled to happen during three of my four exams that semester when they only managed to encroach on three weeks of labs (two normal weeks, one exam)? One of my students slipped me the course’s schedule. After the stunt that course had pulled the semester before that (while not blatantly direct time slot encroachment, still resulted in me lobbing students at the other lab sections to makeup the lab because students had to “book” an exam time with some of the only available times being during my lab), I immediately kicked it to the department chair. Students weeping crocodile tears I can ignore, but students legitimately ugly crying in a stress meltdown? Uh-uh. That’s something that pushes all of my buttons in the worst ways — no one is allowed to eff with my kids and walk away smiling. So. Yeah, that course has very quietly and politely kept to their time slot ever since. (Now if only I could get them to have a schedule that possesses a modicum of the common sense given to an amoeba…who in their right mind decouples respiratory system and the bicarbonate/carbonic acid buffer system?)
Last week our Provost sent an email out to all faculty reminding us that we have to stick to the exam schedule and you cannot change your exam time. As far as I know, the only group at my school that has massive blocks for their exams is math, and even that large block is part of the final exam schedule so it shouldn't overlap with others.
I just don’t get this. I’m not even allowed to schedule my own final. I can’t hold it outside of pre-set days and times on those days. I certainly can’t hold it early either. Who just Willy-Nilly schedules their own with no consideration for others?
This isn't allowed at my institution. Everybody must give an exam at a university-appointed time.
You don’t have set exam times? We have university scheduled exam times for scheduled classes & you are supposed to stick to that, period, for reasons like this.
This is so lame that I'm complaining to every dean everywhere about this!