December 7, 2017

To: UCSB Faculty and Instructors
From David Marshall, Executive Vice Chancellor
  Henning Bohn, Chair, Academic Senate
Re: Final Exams

 

Because of disturbances and uncertainties caused by the Thomas fire, we have concluded that it would be prudent to offer faculty options for final exams currently scheduled for Saturday. Instructors will have several options for dealing with this situation. If instructors wish to hold the exam as scheduled for those students who are able to attend, they may do so, recognizing that alternative arrangements will have to be made for individual students, and perhaps for a large number of students. Instructors may contact the Registrar if they wish to reschedule the official exam later during finals week.

It is important to make clear to students that they will not be penalized if they are not able to take the regularly-scheduled final. Instructors of all courses may choose to make alternative arrangements to satisfy the requirement to have a final exam, such as offering a take-home final or devising alternative assignments. Faculty should take into consideration the terms of the ASE contracts if they are working with TA’s or other student employees.

If you wish to reschedule your Saturday exam, please contact the Registrar’s office immediately, and no later than 10:00 AM on Friday at leesa.beck@sa.ucsb.edu or 805- 893-4165. It also would be useful for the Registrar to know if you do not plan to use your scheduled exam location anytime during the week so we will know what locations are available for rescheduled exams.

Please notify your students as soon as possible about how you plan to deal with this situation. If your students need to consider any more complicated options, such as incompletes or withdrawals or issues that require policy decisions, please send them to our College academic advisers. In each of our colleges we have academic advisers available to help identify the needs of those affected, and to provide guidance and alternatives.

We continue to monitor the situation and we will provide regular updates.