I’ve been pondering what I would do in such a circumstance. I guess some of it would depend on how many students were in the class - OP any idea how large this class section was?
I think the idea that this professor will have “no penalty” is incorrect. If he/she is an adjunct–likely will not only be fired but will find it difficult to get other similar work. I don’t understand why no effort was made to find prof. If really big course, I would expect TAs to be in the room to help proctor.
I would vote for “keep the grade you have” with option to take make up exam if you choose.
I’ve never done this, nor have I ever been requested to. It seems like it would only have helped if one of the students had realized the professor was not going to appear and run to the department to request help. Even then, someone would have had to make copies and get them to the exam room. Not sure this would happen with a only a department secretary suddenly at the helm.
Drop the lowest test grade from everyone and average the rest.
I’m a prof and I have still have nightmares about this.
One time, the final was scheduled very early in a different room than the usual classroom and we all showed up at the right time only to find the classroom locked. This was before everyone had cell phones, and was so early that no one was around in nearby offices with a phone, so one of my TAs sprinted across campus to the police station who sent someone. I think the exam was about 10 minutes shorter than it would have been otherwise, but it affected everyone equally, so I curved the grades and no one complained. Very annoying.
If the school has a content management system, an online test is trivially easy to construct. You can even have alternate versions to cut down on cheating.
“I’ve never done this, nor have I ever been requested to.” I’m sure there are many things you haven’t been requested to do but which are still a good idea. Your car breaks down on the way to the 8 am final. Someone in your family has a medical emergency and you need to go to the hospital. All kinds of things can happen. Yes, I know people who make a copy accessible to others.
" It seems like it would only have helped if one of the students had realized the professor was not going to appear and run to the department to request help. " So, all the students are sitting there for 2 hours in the classroom. All those cell phones and computers and no one thinks to call the professor or send a quick email asking whether the exam is going to be given? They just sit there staring at the clock for two hours?
So did your son tell you what the prof is going to do yet OP? Has he had any contact with the prof yet? I mean if everyone missed the final then I would think he would have to come up with something like maybe a last minute term paper or project to substitute for the final?
@mathyone I have the same questions.
Which is irrelevant to the question of whether or not I have ever done X. Lots of things are in theory good ideas.
I asked this question of the 3 college kids sitting in front of me who all finished finals last week. There were moans, but no consensus. One would take the ‘pass’ if offered and allowed by the major (not in a required class?). Second said no, she wanted to take the grade. No one wanted to take the grade as it was going into the final unless it was an A of course (but they said a lot of profs don’t make kids who have As take the finals).
I think the prof should have done more to get them to take the final right then. If a student couldn’t because of a conflict, that work that out for a make up ASAP. Big class and can’t find a room? Find 3 or 4 rooms, have the department send proctors, allow no questions, etc.
Another professor here to echo this being my adult anxiety dream and also interested in the answers to the questions that @mathyone posed.
I actually had this happen, sortof. Prof essentially lost the exam (long story). He came in at the scheduled time with two choices -
- your grade as it currently stands, which he had available right then (and had been given a little bit of a bump up)
- a make up “no fault” exam where your final grade could not go down.
The second choice I thought was very fair, since finals were stressful enough, but for the student wanting to pull their grade up they could come in with out the fear of bombing the thing and making matters worse.
A colleague of mine did this. She was a long-term (20+ years) senior faculty member well-known for her adherence to rules and policy. Not sure what happened that day; maybe she was just really into grading her other finals. But yes, honest mistake, no adjunct on her way out, no beef with the university.
She tracked down every single student in the class and scheduled individual retakes. I was just stunned that she managed to catch all the students before they left for break.
Something like this happened at S’s high school. The Latin teacher taught at two different schools. The finals schedule is always different from the regular class schedule, and he mixed up which school he was supposed to be at. So for S’s final, the teacher was at the other school… There was no way to put another exam time into the schedule. I can’t remember what his solution was–either let grades stand as they were before the final, or grade as if each student had gotten 100% on the final? I was sympathetic to the teacher, but he had “other issues” and his contract was not renewed.
A couple years ago, S’s college roommate overslept an early final. He freaked out/cried, etc. But I think he worked it out after talking to the prof. and was able to make it up somehow. People are human.
A colleague of mine at my old institution (back when I was law school non-tenured faculty) got the date wrong and hadn’t written the exam, so the call ten minutes into the exam did no good. Students were told to come back and take the exam (which was 100% of their grade) after the afternoon exams were over. Several students had stayed up all night to study and waiting 8 hours was not a happy prospect. I think he was so embarrassed that he bumped everyone’s grade a little. He was tenured, there was no real penalty.
On the opposite side, my late husband (widely considered the hardest professor at that institution and the top 20 law school that later recruited him) once had a student call a hour before the exam to say that he had just been released from jail (arrested for driving on a suspended license) where he had spent a sleepless night. H laughed his head off (privately) and let the student reschedule.
Not a problem of the same magnitude, but a fire alarm was pulled at the start of my final exam once and so my students sat at the curb and took the test because we thought we’d get let back in the building soon. But my students spent about an hour outside on the curb before we went back in. Fortunately it was the end of the spring semester, not the fall, and I only had about 35 students. There were other classes displaced from the same building.
In 2011, when those deadly tornadoes hit Tuscaloosa at the end of April, right before finals, UAlabama had to abruptly end school. Students had the option of either taking their current grade or do an online final later. Most opted to take their current grade.
If anyone is a fan of The Middle… Sue Heck had the ‘sleeping through the final’ nightmare come true after her partying brother was staying in her room. He was coaching her on the best story to tell the professor, and she was practicing her lie but got so upset that when the prof asked her why she was late she threw up. Brother congratulated her on having the best presentation of a lie ever.
Curious how this was settled …