Notes for New Faculty
Office of the University Registrar / 121 Kutz Hall
Critical Contacts
Mark Hewitt, University Registrar
Kristina Law, Associate Registrar
Haydee Vazquez, Academic Records Specialist
Summary of Office Responsibilities
Academic policy and regulations, academic calendar, course and classroom scheduling, final exam scheduling, registration and enrollment, degree auditing and awarding, privacy policy (FERPA) and data steward for student records, transcripts, enrollment and degree verifications, transfer credit evaluation, grading, University Bulletin and course schedules.
Privacy and FERPA
Faculty have access to a range of protected information about students. You are responsible for understanding our policies as to how to handle student information — both within the university and externally. Please review our posted policies as they relate to FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and how we handle student information requests and maintain student privacy. Whenever you have a question about how to handle a request for information about a student please contact us.
Academic Calendar
The Brandeis academic calendar is quirky, it is important to review the detailed calendars for each semester. If you teach a 6-week module course, please review the module dates. Do not just assume that a holiday is a holiday — e.g., Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11, classes are actually in session. Also we regularly have to turn particular days into other days to balance the schedule — these are referred to as Brandeis Days.
As an example, a Brandeis Monday might occur on a Thursday, which means Monday classes will meet on that Thursday, and classes that would normally be scheduled to meet on the Thursday will not. You can find the dates for Brandeis Days and for holidays in the detailed semester calendar and also summarized on the Highlights links on the Academic Calendar page.
Subscribing to the Academic Calendar on Google
You may subscribe to the Brandeis University Academic Calendar, as maintained in Google Calendar by the Registrar's office.
If you have access to Google Calendar, you can subscribe to the academic calendar by directly adding it to your calendars. You can locate the Academic Calendar within Google Calendar. In the box for "Other Calendars" add the following: brandeis.edu_pocb06fq5pdm19dbpgujbvsuhk@group.calendar.google.com
An ICS feed for the academic calendar is available at: https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/brandeis.edu_pocb06fq5pdm19dbpgujbvsuhk%40group.calendar.google.com/public
Copy the link above and paste it into your web browser.
Final Exams / Final Presentations
Are not obligatory, so we survey instructors at the start of the term to determine which courses require an exam slot (whether for an exam or presentations) during Finals Week. We process the results to determine the date and time for all final exams. (We assign exam slots to reduce the conflicts for students, which otherwise necessitate make-up exams.) Exam slots are typically 3 hours in length and slots are defined for morning (9am-noon), afternoon (1:30-4:30pm), and evening (6-9pm) during Final Exam week. You may request a shorter exam within those slots, but you must allow students the full published time to complete the exam.
Please note the following:
- NO obligatory activities may be scheduled for the Study Days that precede Finals Week.
- Students may NOT take a final exam early, exams may NOT be given prior to the scheduled time.
- Final exams administered by instructors may NOT be scheduled during the final two weeks of instruction if covering more than half a semester’s material.
- Students and faculty should confirm the date and time of final examinations, once the detailed schedule is published, prior to making any travel arrangements.
We try to post the final exam schedule as early as we possibly can in the term, so that students and instructors can make travel plans, so please respond to our surveys promptly.
Grading
The majority of classes are graded on a letter-grade basis of A+ to E (our failing grade). For graduate students, please note that any grade below a B- is considered unsatisfactory and will not earn credit. How you map points/percentages to letter grades is at your discretion, but we advise reviewing your grading rubric with experienced faculty within your department so that you fall within the norms of the department. Your grading rubric should be included on your syllabus and abided by — you cannot change how you are grading your students in midstream. Fairness is a slippery term, but students in the same class should have the same opportunities for earning a grade.
There will be times when students are confronted with personal circumstances that may require exceptions on your part in order to maintain some level of fairness across the class. Incomplete grades (and the concomitant extensions) should only be awarded when a small amount of work is outstanding — incompletes are not meant to allow students to submit the majority of their work late! Work for incompletes is due roughly 4 weeks from end of term of the class, with the final grade to replace the incomplete due about two weeks later (see academic calendar for specific dates). Due dates for final grades are listed in the academic calendar — please be aware that distinct and earlier dates apply to students graduating in the Spring term.
Registration/Enrollment
Please consult the academic calendar for specific dates associated with the deadlines below. Students may add and drop freely through the first 10 instructional days of the term, after that classes may not be added without going through a petition process for a late add. We do not encourage late adds and we generally do not support late adds if a student was not attending from the start of the term. After the end of registration, students may still drop a course as long as they maintain at least 12 credits. The drop deadline occurs at the 50th day of instruction for semester-long courses. Students expect feedback on their standing in a course in advance of this deadline, so please be prepared. For Module courses, please consult the academic calendar for the last day to drop a course.
Waitlists
During a registration period, classes that have numeric limits on the number of seats may generate a waitlist. Once the class reaches its enrollment limit, it closes to further enrollment, and students are placed on a waitlist. As seats open up, the students on the waitlist receive a notification in Workday to enroll, and they have 24 hours to respond before the seat is offered to the next student on the waitlist. If an instructor has opted to control the waitlist manually, they are responsible for monitoring the seats that open up and enrolling the students directly. However, in some cases, if there is a hard limit due to classroom size limitations, we do not allow additional students. We do alert instructors when this happens to not enroll additional students.
Workday
Workday is the official system of record for class enrollments and degree audits. Instructors can view class lists, and are required to enter official final grades for their courses in Workday. Advisors have access to their assigned advisee student records and degree audits. Students perform all their enrollment activities directly in Workday. If you do not see a student listed for your class on Workday, that student is not officially enrolled. Workday is distinct from, and feeds enrollment information to, Latte (our version of Moodle), which is currently our learning management system.
Guides to how to use Workday are available for faculty and staff, either as a .pdf document or in short videos contained in the FAQ section of the page.
Classrooms
Classrooms are shared university spaces, however the Office of the University Registrar is responsible for the scheduling of classes and classrooms. We do our utmost to schedule classes based on the various and competing needs across the university as a whole. Please be mindful that not all classroom requests and preferences can be honored as classroom inventory is limited on campus. If you have questions or concerns about your classroom space, please email scheduling@brandeis.edu, if you encounter an actual problem with your classroom please report it right away — either to your department administrator or to us — it is important that we are alerted to problems early as other classes may be affected and may have to be moved.
Classroom assignments are visible in Workday/public schedules now, but they are in flux until the start of classes each term. The office emails instructors and students once the information has stabilized, very close to the start of classes.
The Office of the University Registrar reserves the right to modify classroom assignments based on the needs of the University community. In the case of an emergency, or where there are conflicting requests for the same space, the Office of the University Registrar has the authority to relocate classrooms based on our determination of what is best for the community.
University Bulletin
The University Bulletin is the official document for academic policies and regulations. The Bulletin that is published when a student enters a degree program at the University defines the requirements the student must fulfill to earn that degree. We publish the Bulletin at the start of each fall term, however we maintain a provisional Bulletin which we update on an on-going basis with changes to courses and requirements. The Bulletin is an important advising tool for you and if you are an advisor you should be familiar with its contents as it relates to your programs.
The current Bulletin lists two sets of general requirements for undergraduate students. One set, the older requirements, applies to all undergraduates who entered before July 1, 2019. The other set, the Brandeis Core requirements, applies to all students starting their undergraduate degree program after July 1, 2019. Advisors need to be aware of the distinctions between these requirements and to also ascertain when a student being advised entered the University, as that information is crucial to determining which requirements must be met. The degree audit in Workday for undergraduates automatically applies the correct set of requirements based on the entry date of the student, so advisors should check there when speaking with students.