Report and Recommendations on Common Hour Exams

Background

One of the charges to the Academic Services Committee for 2001-2002 was to review the procedures and policies for administering common hour exams in New Brunswick.  The Committee made its initial report on this topic to Faculty Council in February 2002.  The report was discussed at two meetings of the Council, and slightly modified versions of the Committee's recommendations were approved by the Council on March 29, 2002.  This final report contains the policies and procedures for common hour exams as passed by Faculty Council, along with some background material explaining those recommendations.

History

Common hour exams have been given on the New Brunswick Campus for decades.  Like a great many other activities, the current approach to common hour exams can be traced back to policies devised for Rutgers College by Dean of Instruction Reginald Bishop in the 1970's.  At that time, evening classes were attended almost exclusively by University College students.  Thus if one of the departments of the "day colleges" wanted to hold an exam in the evening, there was not likely to be a conflict with other classes taken by the students of that college.  The students at that time were enrolled on a full-time basis, and other than having part-time on-campus jobs, were not employed while enrolled at Rutgers.

In the early 1980's, a major reorganization consolidated the faculty into New Brunswick-wide departments in arts and sciences and the professional schools.  Shortly after the reorganization, several organizational issues were considered by the various faculty units, including common hour exams.  The FAS faculty, for example, considered the issue of common hour exams at its May 11, 1983, faculty meeting, and adopted three principles to govern common hour exams:

I.  Students should neither be debarred nor discouraged from enrolling in evening courses because of consequent conflict with proposed times of Common Hour Examinations.
II.  These students' first obligation is to attend regularly scheduled classes.  Course hourlies should normally be given during the regularly scheduled class periods for the respective courses.
III.  Common Hourlies may be approved where Departments have submitted plans for handling students, without prejudice, who for valid reason cannot take the Common Hourly at the time scheduled.

Soon thereafter, a set of procedures for administering common hour exams was put in place.  A Common Hour Examination Committee was established to oversee the process and rules, similar to those currently published in the class schedule, were drawn up.  However, what it means to handle "without prejudice" students with conflicts was never carefully spelled out.

At some point the Common Hour Examination Committee ceased to function.  The common hour process, however, continues to this day roughly as it was established in the 1980's, but without the oversight of a committee to ensure its efficacy.

Current Practices

The Academic Services Committee met with Arun Mukherjee, the Director of Scheduling, Michael Beals of the FAS dean's office, and representatives of selected departments offering common hour exams.  The Committee learned that the current procedures are closed.  That is, only departments that have historically given common hour exams are contacted about their plans.  There is no oversight structure and no mechanism for reviewing requests for common hour exams from departments not now giving such exams.

The reasons for wanting common hour exams are fairly obvious.  In multi-lecture courses, having common hour exams reduces the number of different exams that must be written and permits all students to be evaluated on the basis of a common standard.  This is particularly important in large introductory courses taught predominantly by PTL's and instructors on annual appointments.

The bulk of the common hour exams are held during 7th and 8th periods.  To have the appropriate space in which to administer the exams, Scheduling must reserve roughly eight large lecture halls during these periods.  This substantially limits the number of courses that can be scheduled in the evening.  Given the increasing enrollment pressures, it is not clear that the Campus can justify this relatively inefficient use of these important classrooms.  The only weekday time that large lecture halls are available is 6th period on Friday, but Rutgers, as an institution, has generally determined that administering such exams at this time would not be appropriate since a significant number of Jewish students would be unable to take part.

 In the past, non-classroom spaces, such as gymnasiums, were used for common hour exams, but this no longer appears possible.  Some attempts were made to hold common hour exams on weekends, but these efforts were not successful.  On Saturdays and Sundays, the Rutgers University Police Department is responsible for opening classrooms.  On the weekend, police coverage is very light.  Unlocking rooms has low priority and in the event of an emergency, there can be a long wait to get into an examination room.

Most common hour exams are given by departments in FAS.  The FAS dean's office generally supports close coordination of large, multi-section classes and common hour exams are viewed as an academically appropriate vehicle for testing students' knowledge.  The current procedures, however, leave the deans "out of the loop" on decisions about common hour exams.

The Committee received communications about common hour exams from the offices of the Deans of Cook College and the School of Engineering.  Engineering gives a small number of common hour exams.  Cook currently gives none.  Both Dean Maw of Cook and Dean Rankin of Engineering stated that they felt the published rules governing the administration of common hour exams are not being followed.  They pointed to instances in which faculty told students that common hour exams take precedence over evening classes and to cases where students with conflicts were not treated fairly.

With the possible exception of Mathematics, the Committee has not been able to identify any large unmet demand for additional common hour exams, although no thorough survey of the Campus was undertaken.

Hour exams have several purposes.  One is to give the instructor some data on which to base a grade.  However, another, perhaps even more important purpose is to give students a sense of how they are performing in the course in time for changes to be made if things are not going well.  Long delays in the scheduling of conflict exams defeat this purpose.  The practice of giving conflict exams that are substantially harder than the original exams also does not seem to handle "without prejudice" students with valid reasons for missing the primary exam.

The 1983 FAS policies recognized explicitly only three valid reasons for missing a common hour exam:  a conflict with another Rutgers course, a conflict with another common hour exam, and a conflict with a scheduled Rutgers athletic practice.  In the nearly 20 years since these policies were drafted, life generally and in particular student life has become more complicated.  In its initial report, the Committee argued that fairness to today's students requires recognizing as valid other reasons for not being able to appear at a common hour exam.

Recommendations

Some individuals are doubtful whether the system of common hour exams can be continued much longer.  However, the departments currently offering these exams feel so strongly about them that it does not seem reasonable to recommend abolishing the process without a much more extensive review than has been possible this year.  The recommendations listed below provide an oversight structure for common hour exams and some modifications of the policies for administering the exams that will clarify the obligations of departments to their students and will provide incentives for all parties to follow the rules.

     It does not seem to be a good idea to create a new committee to oversee the common hour exam process.  Among existing advisory bodies, the Senate does not deal with campus-specific activities like common hour exams and Faculty Council does not have operational responsibilities.  There is one committee that has broad representation from the academic units in New Brunswick and is charged with reaching consensus on a range of academic issues affecting more than one campus unit.  This is the Academic Coordinating Council.  Although this Council is chaired by Vice President Susan Forman, it is predominately a New Brunswick body.  Under the new recommendations, the Academic Coordinating Council would be given the responsibility developing policies and procedures for common hour exams.
 Here is the complete set of recommendations approved by Faculty Council:

1.  Common hour examinations in New Brunswick should be administered in the following manner:

A. The Academic Coordinating Council should be assigned overall responsibility for developing the policies and procedures for the administration of common hour exams in New Brunswick.  The Council should be encouraged to suggest ways of dealing with the serious space problems associated with those exams.
B. Ultimate responsibility for deciding which departments will be permitted to offer common hour exams lies with the University Vice President for Academic Affairs.  It is reasonable to expect that normally this responsibility will be delegated to a senior academic administrator reporting to the Vice President.  The Academic Coordinating Council could be asked for advice on these decisions.

2.  To facilitate communication between Faculty Council and the Academic Coordinating Council on a range of issues related to the administration of the academic programs in New Brunswick, including the use of common hour exams, a representative from Faculty Council should be named to the Academic Coordinating Council.

3.  Decisions about common hour exams should balance requests for these exams with other possible academic uses of classroom space.

4.  Any department in New Brunswick should be able to submit a request for a common hour exam.

5.  To be approved, a request for a common hour exam should have the written endorsement of the dean of the department's academic unit.

6.  If more requests are received than can be satisfied, the deans should be asked to prioritize the requests from their units.  The final decisions should respect the deans' priorities.

7.  Since it is not possible to offer common hour exams in all large, multi-section courses, approval of requests for common hour exams should be based on documentation by the department of special circumstances justifying common exams, on the department's efforts to handle without prejudice students with conflicts and other serious problems, on the support of the dean, and on the availability of space.

8.  Approval of departments to offer common hour exams should be reviewed at least every two years. Departments will be consulted in this process.

9.  The following policies should govern the administration of common hour exams in New Brunswick:

A.  The overall examination time will not exceed eighty (80) minutes.
B.  For each common hour examination, students will be excused from an equivalent period of instruction.
C.  Regularly scheduled Rutgers classes take precedence over common hour examinations.
D.  The times and locations of common hour examinations and the official rules concerning conflicts with common hour exams will be announced clearly at the beginning of the term and students with potential conflicts will be advised to contact their instructor immediately.
E.  Conflict examinations must be provided for students  having conflicts with the primary common examination.  These alternate examinations will be offered within one week of the primary examination and will be graded according to the same standards.
F.  Valid justifications for missing the primary common examination include a scheduled Rutgers class, a scheduled Rutgers intercollegiate athletic practice or a scheduled athletic event. Student appeals concerning the appropriateness of the student's reason for missing a common hour examination will be referred to the dean of instruction in the student's college and the dean's decision will be binding on both the student and the department offering the examination.
G.  All room assignments and dates for common hour examinations, including any alternate examinations, must be cleared through the Scheduling Office.