A new finals policy established in March of 2009 is a reinforcement of the old policy and will decrease leniency with final examinations at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

This semester students can count on taking finals in classes in which they may not have had a final in other years.  The new finals policy is a way for the UW-Superior campus to enforce final examinations and also to make sure that students are receiving a superior education by the UW-System guidelines. 

The new policy says, “All faculty and instructional academic staff who teach courses which are regularly scheduled and which conclude at the end of a semester must give a final examination or culminating learning activity during the time period scheduled in the final examination schedule.”

Professors will have to hold a final exam during the designated time scheduled for that class and students will have to either attend or make amends.  The policy also says, “It is the decision of the faculty or instructional staff member as to whether or not to honor individual student requests to move a final examination time.”

While the policy is more demanding for professors by requiring an exam in every class as well as meeting during the final exam period, the policy allows leniency in that professors are still allowed to be creative. 

“Professors are free to design whatever learning/assessment activities they wish,” said Timothy Cleary, faculty senate secretary. This allows professors to have take home exams, presentations, or other activities depending on the class.

“We wanted to make clear in the policy that that was acceptable,” said Joel Sipress, former faculty senate chair.

The policy also allows students to reschedule exams with consent of the professor. The old policy stated that students could not miss exams, and now the policy states, “It is the decision of the faculty or instructional staff member as to whether or not to honor individual student requests to move a final examination time.”

This means that while some students may be able to reschedule exams there will also be many more exams taking place around finals week.

“Students will likely be attending more finals,” said Cleary of what students should expect from this new policy.