SCHOOL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Academic Appeals Info for Advisors

 

Art & Humanities students typically file very few academic appeals, testimony to good advising and responsible course selection. For students in genuine need, I’m providing the following guidelines about appeals. Students can petition any all college requirement or policy (departmental requirements are handled by the department chair, not the Academic Standards Office), but you can give them guidance about which requests are reasonable and which are unlikely to be granted. Advisors should encourage students to understand the college requirements and the rationale behind the requirements as the basis of a strong liberal arts education. If you have questions about the rationales, let me know.

 

Students should know that:

 
  • requests should be kept to a minimum--> if they ask for five requirements to be waived, they’re not likely to be taken seriously on any of them
  • they should never make a request simply because it would be convenient not to have to fill a college requirement
  • they should take care to craft a well-written and convincing argument that delineates the extenuating circumstances justifying the request
  • they should provide documentation of extenuating circumstances; petitions without documentation and/or necessary support may be denied outright
  • the Academic Appeals office keeps a file of students’ appeals history; serial petitioners are often frowned upon
 

Some petitions cannot be granted by the Academic Appeals committee:

 
  • Graduate with fewer than 120 hours
  • Waiver of any of the SUNY Trustees general education requirements; only the Provost has the power to waive these

o 3 cr. Art

o 3 cr. Humanities

o 3 cr. Natural Science

o 3 cr. Social Science

o 3 cr. American history

o 3 cr. Western Civilization

o 3 cr. Non-Western (Other World) Civilizations

o Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning (Basic Math) requirement (only waived with evidence of disability)

 

Maybe the Appeals committee can waive the following but I’ve never known us to:

  • BSC101—waived only if a student has a college transcript that proves s/he has taken an equivalent course elsewhere (such requests are referred to the Assistant Dean for Intellectual Foundations for review)
  • Foreign language requirement (unless the student has worked with Students with Disabilities Office to prove s/he has a learning disability)
  • Diversity requirement
  • Waiver of the upper-division requirement, now that the requirement has been reduced to 33 credit hours
 

The following are requests that would be granted only with serious documentation:

 
  • Waiver of writing intensive requirement (considered only with support of the Director of the College Writing Program)
  • Late registration of a course after the semester is over
  • Late drop of a course or semester (a drop is different from a withdrawal in that a drop implies getting tuition back). (Students should be apprised that this type of request may have serious negative financial implications).
  • Retroactive withdrawal after semester is over (generally granted only on an all-or-nothing basis. The idea is that, if circumstances in student’s life were so dire as to justify retro WD, it’s likely performance in all courses was affected). (If students have medical documentation, they can take that to Weigel Health Center for determination of whether a retroactive medical leave is appropriate)

The following are reasonable petitions, if the student has documentation of extenuating circumstances that made it difficult for them to meet the requirement:

  • Late registration during the semester (needs support of professor of class and department chair)
  • Late withdrawal from a course (after the deadline)
  • Late pass/fail (after the deadline; never for course in major or minor; never if student already has another course pass/fail in the semester); needs support of academic advisor)
  • For students under GEC, a waiver of the 3rd required course in each core area, since current students only need to take two. Keep in mind the student should still meet the two prefix rule
  • Waiver of the rule that students take their last 16 credits at BSC
 

If the student seeks advisement and is well-advised, petitions for the following should not be necessary:

 
  • Waiver of the two-prefix rule
  • Waiver of the second course Buffalo State requires in the four cognate areas
  • Drops of illegally repeated courses
 

Students who have been out of school for a number of years and have been readmitted in Intellectual Foundations may inquire about petitioning to be switched back to the General Education Core program (GEC). Academic Standards uses the following criteria to judge such requests: 

  1. Attended college prior to Fall 2000
  2. Had 102 or more credits at the time of readmission to BSC
  3. Has department support to go back to GEC
 

Students must fulfill all 3 to have petition approved.