Dear Colleagues,

I trust your semester is off to a good start!

A couple of quick points of clarification regarding the class schedule and adding students to your courses.

The Schedule and Passing Times:

A few of you are aware that one of the features of the new class schedule is that passing times will no longer be implicit in the published class schedule. Rather, they will be explicit. That is, if a course is supposed to meet Tuesday/Thursday 8:00-9:15 and be dismissed at 9:15, giving students 15 minutes to travel to his or her next class, that is indeed what will be published in the schedule.

However, this new convention does not take effect until Spring 2017. For this final Fall 2016 semester, the existing implicit passing time remains in place. So, for example, if a class is listed as Monday/Wednesday 12:30-2:00, you should in fact dismiss the class by 1:50 so that 1) the students will have time to make it to their next class, and 2) your fellow faculty members will have time to set up for their class.

Adding Students to Your Courses:

It is important to note that policies and procedures differ on the undergraduate and graduate sides of the House of Questrom.

Undergraduate:

We have now closed the UDC waitlist system.  We are notifying any student still waiting on the list that we were unable to secure him/her a seat in the requested course/section.  (The good news is there were only a few dozen compared to the 2300+ we were able to accommodate – bravo to Becky DiMattia and Brinia Colbert for their work on this.)

Once classes begin, students may be coming to you seeking your signature on drop/add forms.  (Blank forms are available in the UDC, which is also where signed forms may be submitted.)  It is up to you whether or not you sign students into your course.*  Please consider the following when deciding whether or not to sign students into your course:

  • Please ask the student if s/he has completed the necessary pre-req(s) for your course. Technically, the student shouldn’t get credit if s/he takes the course without the necessary pre-req(s). Pre-reqs for Questrom courses are available within course descriptions here.
  • All Questrom courses were closed as of yesterday at 5:00 p.m. and we will let you know if we add someone under special circumstances in the UDC going forward. I encourage you to run fresh copies of your class roster (available via the Faculty Link) to determine whether you have scope to add students, as students often drop without letting you know.
  • Please do not sign in more students than your classroom has capacity to hold. At the same time, unless your course has received special dispensation from the Undergraduate PDC to run below room capacity for pedagogical purposes, I encourage you to sign in students to room capacity (in small classrooms) or up to 55 (in large classrooms) whenever possible.
  • As always, please refer students with issues to the UDC.  Feel free to call Rachel Reiser at 353-5335 or Meghan Mogan (353-9107) with any student-related issues.

*Exceptions:

  • Enrollments for SM131, FE101, and Core (FE323, MK323, OM323, and QM323)  are handled through the UDC. Any student with questions about registering for their courses should go to the UDC.

Special Note: Some students have been coming to us for “tent cards” (name plates), saying that they have been sent by their professors. Please know that students can print their own tent cards here. The UDC can provide card stock to students who need it.

Graduate:

Unlike on the undergraduate side, we do not close graduate courses unless the course filled quickly during the registration period and the instructor is keeping a waiting list.  Therefore, graduate students may go into the registration system through the last day to add (September 19) and add themselves into graduate courses with available seats.

Best of luck this semester, and don’t hesitate to be in touch should you have any questions!

Norm

Norm Blanchard
Director – Course Planning
Boston University Questrom School of Business
Rafik B. Hariri Building
595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA  02215
normanb@bu.edu
(617) 353-2650