Incomplete policy gives profs leeway

The College of Arts and Sciences has modified its policy on incomplete grade reports so faculty members can choose how long students may take finishing their course work, University administrators said this week. Professors would be able to assign two different types of incomplete notations to students who have not completed the course work in a given course. Under the new policy, which will take effect this fall, students receiving a "short incomplete" or 'I' report for a course would have to complete the work by the end of the fourth week of the following semester. If they do not finish, the incomplete would turn into an 'F.' Students receiving a "long incomplete" or 'II' report would have until the end of the next semester to complete the course work. If not completed by that time, an incomplete would also be converted to an 'F'. Also, no student may graduate with an incomplete on his or her record under the new policy. The College changed its policy to "encourage students to resolve their incompletes in a timely manner, so that they can focus their attention on current courses," Executive Assistant to the College Dean Kent Peterman said. According to statistics compiled by the College of Arts and Sciences Office, College students have averaged 565 incompletes during the 1990 and 1991 spring semesters. Committee on Undergraduate Education Chairperson Rebecca Bushnell said that the members of CUE "had become embroiled in a debate about the nature of the incomplete." "The committee seemed to be divided between people who wanted the policy to be much stricter and those who wanted to retain the old policy's flexibility," Bushnell said. She said the resulting policy represented a "compromise document." In cases in which incompletes become 'F's, the failing grades may be changed at the discretion of the course's professor. College students will be governed by these new rules, regardless of the undergraduate school in which they receive the incomplete. Students from the other undergraduate schools who receive incompletes in College courses will be subject to their own schools' policies on incompletes. The Wharton, Engineering and Nursing schools have incomplete policies similar to the College's "short incomplete." Incompletes issued before the fall 1992 semester will be governed by the old rules on incompletes. Under the old policy, incomplete courses which were not completed by the fourth week of the following semester would be changed to "permanent incompletes" or 'I*.' Students who wanted to change an 'I*' grade had to petition the Committee on Undergraduate Academic Standing. College junior Deborah Topol, who is a member of both CUE and the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, said that she approves of the new policy. "I think it's extremely fair," Topol said. "[The new policy] standardizes the [incompletes] policy across the University's four schools, and it's flexible enough to suit all of the different courses in the College in terms of the short versus long incompletes."

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