SUBJECT:

Policy on Midterm and Final Examinations

The Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) would like to call your attention to policy regarding two subjects:

1. Policy on Midterm Examinations
   1. Under the new policy approved by the Committee on Educational Policy Spring 2000:

   2. Faculty are obliged to have printed in the Schedule of Classes the date and time of any midterm which is to be given outside of the regularly scheduled class hours (beginning with the Winter 2001 Schedule of Classes).

   3. Additionally, any midterm given outside of the regularly scheduled class hours must be announced in a syllabus distributed to the class at the beginning of the quarter.

2. Policy on Final Examinations
   1. Final examinations may not be given at any time before the final examination week without explicit permission of CEP.

   2. Although the instructor may give a final examination at an alternative time during final examination week with the approval of CEP, students must be permitted to take an equivalent examination at the originally scheduled time if they so desire.

   3. An instructor may administer an examination at an alternative time if a valid reason is given by the student for not taking the regularly scheduled examination. Valid reasons include: religious holidays, verified illnesses, family disasters.

   4. Academic Senate Regulations specify that final examinations are required of all undergraduate courses, unless an exception has been approved by CEP or the CEP Subcommittee on Undergraduate Courses.

   5. Final examinations are, however, normally not required in laboratory courses.
      
   6. No student may be excused from assigned final examinations.

   7. A final examination must, whenever practicable, be written and must be completed by all participants within a previously announced time limit.

   8. Examinations in non-laboratory courses may not exceed three hours duration.

   9. The instructor may not require a "take-home" final examination to be turned in before the date and hour at which the examination in the course was scheduled by the Registrars Office.

   10. Faculty members (including visiting faculty) must be present and available during finals week when the final examinations of their courses are given. In cases where the instructor's absence cannot be avoided, the department chair or program director must seek CEP approval to designate another faculty member to administer the final examination. Nevertheless, faculty course instructors themselves must assign grades for the courses they teach.

   11. CEP will not recommend approval of faculty absences during finals week unless arrangements to administer the final examination have been worked out in advance with the department chair or program director.

                                                Gabriele Wienhausen, Chair
                                                Committee on Educational Policy