Thursday, October 27, 2005

make up classes!

It's 5:27 p.m. Apparently the dean sent out an e-mail about making up classes at 3:23 p.m. I haven't yet received it but I found it on the school's web site.

For me, it raises more questions than it answers (like why does it take more than 2 hours to get an e-mail from the dean?). For instance, does the fact that Professor Civ Pro II crammed more reading into the alloted days mean no make up classes for Civ Pro? What will happen with Evidence where we were supposed to have halloween off? Presumably we'll have class on halloween and that would mean we won't be in class on Saturday November 5 at night until 9 p.m. Wow. that would be really unpleasant. (Why are the other 2 weekend make ups on Sunday but this one is on Saturday? Sure, I'll be in class if it's Saturday nigth but I can't think too many other people will be there Saturday night until 9 p.m.)

Another question it raises: does the dean really think people were using this time to outline? Most of us have no power and haven't had access to it until today. That must be a joke...

Anyway, here's the e-mail:

To: Fall 2005 Law Students
From: Marc Fajer, Associate Dean
Date: October 27, 2005
Re: POST-WILMA STATUS & MAKE-UP INFORMATION

I hope you all are safe and coping as well as you can under the circumstances. The Law School sustained only minor damage in the the storm. We have power and the network and e-mail systems are fully operational. The lockers that were blown over have been put back in place. This memo is to keep you apprised of our current plans.

Today through Sunday: Today through Sunday, the Law Library and Subway will be open and the Help Desk will be staffed. The library will open at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow and at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, and will close at 7:00 p.m. each night. Note that the time changes on Saturday night; set your clocks back one hour. Because we are likely to be running a compressed schedule once we start classes again, you may wish to take advantage of this time (and the air conditioned library) to catch up and begin preparation for exams.

Papers Due and Exams Scheduled This Week (October 24-28): Treat papers that had been due this week as due on the first day we resume classes. Even though the library is open now, you should not try to turn in papers until classes resume. Otherwise, there is a serious risk that your work will be mislaid because most of the staff is not here now. Midterm exams scheduled this week in Professor Williamson’s International Law and A.D.R. classes are tentatively rescheduled for Wednesday, November 2 during your usual class time.

Monday: We currently plan to resume a full class schedule on Monday. Those of you who are parents, if we are open and your children’s schools are not, feel free to bring your children to class with you. Given the difficulty obtaining gasoline, we strongly recommend that you try to carpool if possible.

There is a possibility that the University will decide that concerns about transportation and safety will require us to remain closed or to cancel evening classes on Monday. Please continue to monitor the website and/or one of the hotline numbers (305-284-5151 or 305-284-4551) over the next few days to get the latest information.

Assuming that we are fully operative on Monday, we will implement the plan laid out below to facilitate scheduling make-up classes. If we have to cancel more classes, we will issue a revised schedule that probably will involve shifting the dates for final exams.

Plan for Making Up Classes Lost to Wilma: This plan for meeting the ABA requirement for 700 minutes of classtime per unit credit was designed with several concerns in mind. We wanted to avoid interfering with existing plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, especially given the difficulty and expense of changing airline reservations during the holiday season. We also wanted to avoid creating impossible work burdens on students and faculty during the remaining month of classes. Finally, we wanted to ensure that students had adequate time to prepare for exams.

Make-Up Days: The gist of the plan is to designate five days on which classes were not scheduled to make up the five days lost to Wilma. To do this, we will utilize one weekend day on each of the first three weekends in November and the Monday and Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Specifically:

Monday classes will be made up on Monday, November 28

Tuesday classes will be made up on Tuesday, November 29

Wednesday classes will be made up on Saturday, November 5

Thursday classes will be made up on Sunday, November 20

Friday classes will be made up on Sunday, November 13

On each of the make-up days (except the one for Friday classes), we will presumptively run the entire day’s class schedule as though it were the day being made up. In other words, if you have class on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. in Room 265, then you will have Room 265 available for your class at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 5. If you have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. in Room 352, that room will be available for your class at 6:30 p.m. on both Sunday, November 20 and Tuesday, November 29.

On Sunday November 13, we will make up Friday morning classes on the following schedule:

8:00 a.m. classes will meet at 1:00 p.m. in the usual rooms

9:30 a.m. classes will meet at 2:30 p.m. in the usual rooms

11:00 a.m. classes will meet at 4:00 p.m. in the usual rooms

Use of the Make-Up Days and Alternatives: The faculty teaching each class have the option of using the scheduled make-up days or of trying to make up classes in other ways such as extending the length of already scheduled classes or using other times when the classrooms are available. However, we presume that many faculty members will choose to use the pre-scheduled make-up days. Your Professors should be letting you know your make-up schedule during the first week back.

Attendance and Taping: Treat attendance at the make-up classes no differently than for any other class. If you need to miss a make-up class, follow the standard procedures for alerting your instructors. Students who have religious obligations that prevent them from attending one of the scheduled make-up sessions will be excused. We plan to tape as many of the make-up classes as possible. However, we strongly suggest that you not skip classes and rely on the tapes because the demand for the tapes and for video and audio players may result in significant wait-time before you can review them.

Shift in the Exam Schedule: Because of the post-Thanksgiving classes, the reading period will be shorter than usual. We hope that this will be partially offset by your using your extra week off to catch-up and outline. However, because we are concerned that the shortened reading period will affect first-year students more than upper level students, we are going to make a small adjustment in the exam schedule. The first-years were scheduled to begin exams on Friday, December 2 and the upper level students were scheduled to begin on Saturday December 3. We will switch the schedules for those two days, so that the upper level exams scheduled for December 3 will take place on December 2 and the first years will have their first exam on December 3. The rest of the exam schedule will remain unchanged.

Please let me know if you have any questions or problems.

2 Comments:

At 7:06 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update because I can't even access my law school account

 
At 5:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, and why the hell aren't they scheduling the Friday makeup for after Thanksgiving? That would effect fewer upperclassmen than this current schedule. This is going to really screw up a lot of people who already bought plane tickets.

 

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