It is well into January and some students are still waiting for their marks from last semester. According to the office of the registrar, this is a recurring problem.
“I’m afraid it’s not unusual,” said Wilfrid Laurier University registrar Ray Darling. “It causes us problems, because it just delays everything. We can’t issue transcripts for students, we can’t make progression decisions.”
According the 2008 collective agreement, professors must submit their grades to the registrar’s office 96 hours after the final exam for the course is completed.
President of the Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association (WLUFA) Judy Bates noted that she has no idea why professors are not adhering to the guidelines set out in the agreement.
“I don’t know why faculty aren’t handing in their grades,” said Bates.
“The university can enforce it if it chooses to do so: I have no idea why they choose not to enforce it.”
First-year history student Cody Haché noted that he didn’t receive his marks until well after the new year.
“It frustrates me, I’m interested in how I did,” said Haché. “Waiting that long of a time is really inconvenient.”
At a 2000 senate meeting, a motion was presented and passed to extend the hours a professor had to submit grades from 72 hours to 96 hours.
“The motion in 2000 came through the senate examination and standing committee, which we don’t have anymore,” said university secretariat Shereen Rowe. She added that if this issue continues, the academic planning committee could bring suggestions forward to senate about how to resolve the problem.
Rowe added that there are no policies in place regarding what to do when the guidelines are not followed, as they don’t typically have this for any of the agreements. “I don’t know what, as a body, senate could do to enforce it.
“I think it’s a good question, how do you enforce it?” continued Rowe. “I appreciate the frustrations of students that there is a process out there and it doesn’t seem to be followed.”
Rowe said that in order to fix the current problem, there needs to be collaboration between senate and academic planning.
“I think perhaps Deborah MacLatchy, as provost and vice-president academic dealing with academic programming, that may be something that needs to be forwarded to her to deal with as falling under her broader mandate.”
MacLatchy could not be reachedfor comment at the time of print.
