A student has the right to discuss his or her grade(s) with a professor. The professor has the right and obligation to judge the quality of a student’s work according to professional standards in comparison with other students in the same course or section or in comparison to a predetermined academic standard of excellence or rubric.. Professors are expected to return student tests and assignments with grades and/or comments. Once returned, those papers become the responsibility of the students. Final examinations or term papers should be returned or kept for reviewby the professor until the end of the following semester.
Further, for a period of 60 days a student may appeal a grade or other academic decision which the student believes to be inequitable or inappropriate to the chair of the professor's department, to the dean of the professor's school and, if necessary, to the Vice President for Academic Affairs. Successive appeals must be filed in writing within two weeks of the issuance of the most recent decision. The Vice President for Academic Affairs will be responsible for the final appeal. In no case will a student's grade be changed to any grade except "W." "P," or "F." Appeals based on a student's perception that the faculty member's professional judment of the quality of his or her work was faulty will not be entertained. All things to the contrary notwithstanding.
(November 1996; modified December 3, 2004 and October 2015)