Using time with your students effectively

December 12, 2024

Looking back on my first semester at Xavier, I cannot emphasize enough my gratitude for the warm and welcoming reception that I received from faculty, staff, and students.  Xavier has exceeded my expectations by miles, and you are the reason why.  Thank you all!

Rather than reminiscing about my first five months, I thought that this might be a good opportunity for offering some thoughts as many of you begin revising and preparing your syllabi for the upcoming Spring semester.  I encourage you to think about how to use your time with students most effectively.  There are obviously many different directions in which one might head, including flipped classrooms, experiential learning, group projects, peer grading, and so much more that goes far beyond a bulletin blog post.

Instead, I want to focus on one small but nevertheless important issue: Please plan to hold classes on all days when classes are in session, inform your students of your plan at the beginning of the semester, and then uphold your plan as the semester unfolds.

Canceling classes before Spring break or the Easter holiday can be tempting—doing so gives you some needed time to breathe and students generally applaud your decision.  Who besides a miserable Scrooge could object to such a win-win decision?

However, canceling classes imposes pressure on your colleagues to cancel their classes as well, as students object to having to stay in town for a single class.  But your colleagues might not be able to cancel class when their students must master all of the planned course material to succeed in upper-level courses.  Faculty as well as students have reported multiple examples of this inequity to our office during this Fall semester.

A related problem arises when faculty offer final exams during the last week of classes instead of exam week.  Students who study for early final exams often skip their other classes, thereby imposing hardship on your colleagues who must find ways for their absent students to succeed in the finals offered during exam week.

Rescheduling final exams for students who want to get out of town early is inequitable to other students who don’t ask—the squeaky wheel shouldn’t get all the grease.  Stating in your syllabus that you will not offer early final exams allows you to hold students accountable for having accepted the implicit contract represented by your syllabus when they decided to continue with your class after the drop period.

It may be tempting to suggest that the university start exam week earlier or cancel classes before holidays officially.  Alas the Higher Learning Commission objects—our accreditors insist that we adhere to the required 15 full weeks of instruction per semester, with one hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction and a minimum of two hours of out-of-class student work each week, for each credit that the class carries.  This HLC requirement also explains why we need to find ways of making up lost face-to-face time when illness or scholarship travel strike.  Asking a colleague to fill in or offering an extra review session before an exam are standard ways to accommodate one-off absences and keep the HLC happy.

Last but not least, our students need short breaks as urgently as faculty need them.  Please don’t expect your students to work on assignments during holidays or spring break.  These breaks are times for recovery, following the spirit of Cura Personalis.

With that spirit and on behalf of the entire CAS Deans’ Office, I wish you a peaceful and restorative holiday.  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Dr. Florenz Plassmann
Dean