Registrar's Notes

October 29, 2007

Midterm grading

Midterm grading is now closed for this fall semester, however students will still be able to view their midterm grades through GoWMU. 

This fall semester, 663 sections participated in midterm grading; a total of 23, 880 midterm grades were submitted.

Withdrawal information

There are three periods of time related to student withdrawals, as a summary:

• From the day after the drop/add period through the Monday of the tenth week, (which is Nov. 5) students can withdraw from a class online through GoWMU.

• From the Monday of the tenth week of the semester, (Nov. 5 for this fall), through the last day of the semester, students can withdraw using the ‘late drop/withdrawal’ form.  The form requires that a student be passing the course and that some exceptional circumstances have caused the need to withdraw. The student, after getting the signature of the instructor, should bring this form to the Registrar’s Office for processing.

• After grades have been submitted for the semester, a student wishing to withdraw from a course needs to file an appeal for a late withdrawal. The appeal form can be found on the Registrar’s website. These appeals go to the GAPDAC committee for final decision.

All withdrawals appear as a ‘W’ on the student’s transcript and do not affect the students’ WMU gpa.

New Schedule view

Faculty and staff now have access to the schedule view students use when searching for courses. To access this view, log in to GoWMU, from the faculty/staff home tab, click on Faculty menu.  Then scroll down to click on ‘Search Course Offerings’. From here you can select the subject and course, the information is returned in a format which allows you to view the enrollment and other information for many sections.

FERPA question of the week

True or false?
An advisor does not have to allow a student to inspect and review her/his personal notes about the student that are held in a file in the desk of the advisor's office.

Upcoming Dates

Monday, Oct. 29 - Fall 2008 schedules available to departments. for update
Monday, Nov. 5 - Last day for students to withdraw for Fall 2007.
Monday, Nov. 5 - Summer I & II final review begins
Friday, Nov. 9 - Summer I and II final corrections due by 5:00 pm.
Wednesday, Nov. 21 - Thanksgiving recess begins at noon
Monday, Nov. 26 - Classes resume
Monday, Dec. 10 - Final exam week begins

FERPA answer:

True, "sole possession" records are an exception to the definition of education records and are therefore not accessible by the student.

The definition of "sole possession" records:
Records that are kept in the sole possession of the maker, are used only as a personal memory aid, and are not accessible or revealed to any other person except a temporary substitute for the maker of the record. 

Any record that is made in conjunction with a student or other school official is not a sole possession record.