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Academic Affairs Updates for Fall 2012

NEW, REVISED, OR RECOMMENDED POLICIES OR PROCESSES

  • ATTENDANCE VERIFICATION:  To comply with federal financial aid regulations, VSU must be able to verify students’ attendance. Whether or not a faculty member chooses to take roll during the course of a term, an accurate proof roll is a necessity.  Federal financial aid cannot be dispersed until faculty members verify that students have been attending (or not attending) classes   Similarly, VSU must return financial aid money to the government at the end of the semester if the student has not attended at least 60% of the term.  Therefore, beginning this fall, when faculty members assign a grade of “F” to a student, an additional screen will appear in BANNER asking faculty members to verify the student’s last date of attendance. Once again, even if faculty members do not keep daily rolls, they should be able to verify attendance by any assignments that a student did (or did not) complete.
  • LATE (AFTER MIDTERM) WITHDRAWAL APPEALS: Academic and Student Affairs are working together to continue to strengthen the process by which students are granted late withdrawals (withdrawals after midterm) due to a medical or hardship situation.  The complete process is available at these two websites: http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/MedicalWithdrawals.shtml and http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/HardshipWithdrawals.shtml.  This process requires that students must start the appeal process for a late withdrawal by the final day of a term; however, situations do arise where students are unable to initiate the process by that time.  Therefore, students must initial an appeal for a late withdrawal for medical or hardship reasons no later than the following:
    • for a spring or summer class, the last class day the fall semester following that term;
    • for a fall class, the last class day of the spring semester following that term.
  • APPEALS PROCESS AFTER A STUDENT HAS EARNED A WF FOR A SIXTH WITHDRAWAL UNDER THE LIMITED WITHDRAWAL POLICY: http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/WithdrawalPolicyFAQ.shtml:

No appeals for an exception will be considered until students have reached the sixth withdrawal. If students can produce supporting documentation that at least four of the earlier withdrawals were due to a medical or hardship situation, they should follow the medical or hardship withdrawal used for after midterm. als for an exception will be considered until students have reached the sixth withdrawal. If students can produce supporting documentation that at least four of the earlier withdrawals were due to a medical or hardship situation, they should follow the medical or hardship withdrawal used for after midterm.

  • STUDENT OPINION OF INSTRUCTION:  Unless a request is forwarded from a faculty member to the department head to the dean/director and then to Academic Affairs, no deviation from the published SOI availability schedule (http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/OnlineSOIPilotProject.shtml) will be permitted; the same process is needed to request an SOI for the one of the types of classes for which an SOI is usually not provided: internships, directed studies, practica, student teaching, and thesis and dissertation hours.
  • TRANSIENT PERMISSION FORMS:  To take classes at another institution while remaining a VSU student, students must complete a transient permission form. This form must be signed by the student’s advisor, department head, and dean.  Since all public institutions in the state of Georgia share a common core curriculum (including the technical colleges and GMC), courses in Areas A-E should be automatically accepted.  Courses in Area F or in the major are at the discretion of the department and college.
  • MAXIENT FOR STUDENT CONDUCT REPORTS: Valdosta State University now has a new resource available for faculty to report incidents of student misconduct, including Academic Integrity violations. The link to this reporting mechanism is available at the Student Conduct Office (http://www.valdosta.edu/judicial/), on the Faculty Resources site at Academic Affairs (http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/FacultyResources.shtml), and on the Academic Honesty webpage (http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/AcademicHonestyatVSU.shtml).
  • COMPLETION OF AREAS A1 AND A2 IN THE CORE:  Effective Fall 2012, for freshmen entering the USG system, students who have earned 30 hours but have not completed Area A1 (basic English classes) and A2 (basic mathematics classes) must enroll in the next course necessary to make progress toward completing this area in every semester in which they take classes (http://www.usg.edu/academic_affairs_handbook/section2/C738/).

NEW TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE:

  • IMPLEMENTATION OF DIGITAL MEASURES:  Over the course of the next year, VSU will begin to implement Digital Measures, a faculty activity software.  The Langdale College of Business already uses this software, and the Dewar College of Education will begin the implementation process this fall.  Read more about this software at http://www.digitalmeasures.com/faculty-activity-reporting-software/ .
  • TRANSITION TO DESIRE 2 LEARN (D2L):  All institutions in the University System of Georgia are moving to a new learning management system.  VSU currently uses WebCT Vista 8, but we are scheduled to move to D2L in May 2013.  Training opportunities and further information will be available later in the year.  If you teach courses through GOML or eCORE, those courses will implement D2L in January 2013 and training sessions will be available for you as well. Read about D2L at http://www.desire2learn.com/
  • IMPLEMENTATION OF TURNITIN:  As part of our migration to D2L, we will also need to adopt a new plagiarism prevention software.  For Fall 2012 and Spring 2013, faculty will still have access to SafeAssign, our current system.  Later this fall, Turnitin, our new system, will become available.  More information about Turnitin is available at http://turnitin.com/ and Academic Affairs and eLearning will announce when materials for Turnitin become available.  If you wish to use a plagiarism prevention software in any of your fall classes,  please complete the activation request form at http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/UsingSafeAssign.shtml
  • AVAILABILITY OF SURVEYMONKEY:  Academic Affairs has purchased a license for Survey Monkey, an online survey tool (http://www.surveymonkey.com/ ).  If you would like to use this tool, please contact your dean or director.

UPCOMING VSU CONFERENCES

NEW FACULTY AND ADMINISTRATORS:

VSU is welcoming a number of new faculty members; a complete list is available at http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/WelcomeNewFaculty.shtml

VSU is also welcoming a number of new administrators in permanent and acting positions:

Dr. William J. McKinney, President

Dr. Karla Hull, Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs

Dr. Brian Gerber, Acting Dean, Dewar College of Education

Dr. Don Leech, Associate Dean, Dewar College of Education

Dr. Rich Vodde, Acting Director, Division of Social Work

Dr. Doug Farwell, Acting Head, Department of Music

Dr. Greg Harrell, Head, Mathematics and Computer Science

Dr. Peggy Auman, Head, Early Childhood and Special Education

Dr. Leon Pate, Acting Head, Curriculum, Leadership, and Technology

Dr. Barbara Radcliffe, Acting Head, Department of Middle, Secondary, Reading, and Deaf Education

Dr. Jackson Reiner, Head, Department of Psychology and Counseling