Start and End of Semester Policies

Start of the Semester

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,...it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us...". Admittedly, Charles Dickens was writing about the 1780's, but much the same could be said about the beginning of the semester.

Before facing our spring of hope, winter of despair, or summer of indifference, however, there are a number of things that every faculty member should do.

1. Check your mail. The mailroom staff should provide a mailbox for every instructor teaching at that campus that semester. If you do not have one, please let them know. You should pick up your mail whenever you are on campus.

2. Set up your email and voice mail. If you do not already have one, please contact the HelpDesk at 223-HELP or Oralia (Lala) Guerra, our administrative assistant, at 223-6052 to get an ACC email account and voice mail account. All faculty are required to have an ACC email account and a voice mail account at which they can receive departmental information and be contacted by students. You may use another email account or telephone number if you wish, but they need to be listed on your syllabus. In addition, Lala needs to be informed of the email account and telephone number at which you prefer to be contacted.

3. Check your email and voice mail. Having these accounts is pointless if you never check them. Almost all departmental notices are sent out by email, and it is assumed that you have read them.

4. Make corrections to the on-line directory. This is linked off of ACC's main page. If any changes need to be made, please contact Lala.

5. Get a place to call your own. If you are teaching at a campus for the first time, please contact the Math/Science administrative assistant at that campus for help in getting a filing cabinet drawer and locating the adjunct faculty office.

6. Update your office hours. You do this in Lighthouse (Direction are attached below). You'll need your ACC eID and password to log in. All faculty are required to have one hour of office hours per week for every 3 LEH that they teach. This works out to two-three hours per week for most adjuncts and five hours a week for full-time faculty (FYI, lecture-only classes are 3 LEH, and almost all lecture-labs are 5.25 LEH).

7. Turn in your contact information. Your mailbox will have a contact information form that should be turned in to your campus administrative office. That way, they'll be able to contact you in an emergency.

8. Turn in your first day handouts, including your syllabus. One copy should be submitted to the Math/Science administrative assistant at your campus, and another copy should be sent to Lala.

9. Check your rolls. After adds-and-drops are over, which is usually after the first three class days, check your roster to make sure that everyone attending your class is registered for it. An accurate roster can be obtained by logging into the Faculty and Staff Online Services. Under no circumstances should unregistered students be allowed to attend a class.

10. Do safety training for students. While you may not want to do this the first week, it must be done before the students do any lab activities.

End of Semester

All good things must come to an end (and even the bad things do too). The following checklist may provide some guidance for wrapping up the semester.

1. Meet all the classes. Board policy and administrative rules require that all classes be met. Our accreditation requires that there be a set number of contact hours per course.

2. Grade. Not that you'd forget.

3. Enter grades on-line. Go to the Faculty and Staff Online Services link off the main page and log in using your ACC eID and password. Record your grades and print out a copy and send it to Lala. That way, there will be a hard copy available in case the system eats the grades, as it has occasionally done. Grades are usually due the Wednesday after the semester ends.

4. Print out a copy of your grade sheet and give it to the Math/Science administrative assistant at your campus. If there is a problem with the on-line grades and you cannot be contacted, this saves everyone a world of grief.

5. Hand in any incomplete grade forms. These should be given only under rare circumstances. They should be sent to the Dept. Chair.

6. Turn in any keys if you are not teaching the following semester. These should be given to the Math/Science administrative assistant at your campus, who will return them to the police.

For various reasons, students may wish to know their grades before they receive their official grade reports. The laws about privacy are very strict, and a student's grades may only be given to the student. The parents, even those of a student who is a minor, may not be told the student's grades. The student needs to submit a written, signed request if they wish to receive their grades ahead of time.