(THE PICKET)—Shepherd University faculty is considering extending the period that students are able to withdraw from classes in the future.
Currently students have nine days after mid-term grades are made available to withdraw from full semester classes. However, after the withdraw period is over, students are still able to petition to withdraw from their classes.
“A fair number of the petitions are along the lines of a lot, ‘My midterm was only on one exam so I was hoping that I would come along and do better on my next exam and didn’t,’” said Dr. Kathy Corpus, chair of family and consumer sciences.
Bryant Currence, a senior political science major said, “A lot of my classes only have a few grades, so my midterm grade is usually a poor indication of how the rest of the semester is going to go.”
During a recent faculty senate meeting, members of the faculty discussed how far into the semester the withdraw period would be extended. Extending the period until the week after advisement had the most positive response; however, no official decision has been made.
“When I was a freshman I didn’t really know how to go about withdrawing, so extending the withdraw period to the week after advising could potentially help a lot of people because they can get advice from their advisor,” said Tyler Anderson, a senior athletic coaching major.
In previous years at Shepherd the withdraw period was later in the year, but the calendar committee has since moved the date to earlier in the semester.
“If it helps keep 18 or 19-year-olds in school, is there anything really wrong with that?” Corpus said.
Brooke Binns is a writer for the Picket and she can be contacted at tbinns01@rams.shepherd.edu.
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