May 4, 2015

Commencement

Congratulations to our new WMU graduates. Over 2,700 degrees were conferred at commencement on Saturday. View our graduate's posts and pictures on Twitter using #WMUGrad.

Grading

Spring semester grades are due tomorrow—May 5—at noon. The grading system will be turned off soon after the deadline and we will begin processing. Grades will be available for students to view as soon as processing has been completed, which we anticipate will be sometime in the late afternoon or early evening tomorrow.

Students will be notified through their wmich.edu e-mail account if their academic standing changes to probation, extended probation, final probation or dismissal. The e-mail will explain what the standing means and what impact it has on future registration. If the student has been academically dismissed a hard copy letter will also be mailed to their permanent address. Students who have been academically dismissed will be dropped from their summer I courses on Thursday, May 7.

Instructors are required to provide a last date of attendance for students receiving a grade of E or X. If attendance information is not available the instructor can use the last date of recorded academic activity. In cases where the student does not come to even one class session or does not complete any work on the first day of the semester should be used—Jan. 12, 2015.

Degree Works update

Last week the plans feature was added to the student view in Degree Works. This feature has been live in the advisor view for several months. Plans is a feature that allows advisors and students to create, view and save sequenced semester academic plans. A well-designed plan will not only enable students to better prepare for the upcoming registration; it will also help them better prepare for the long term goal of graduation. When a plan is built in consultation with an advisor students will be able to avoid challenges along the way such as discovering they don't have the appropriate prerequisite or the course isn't offered when they planned to take it. The ability to look at a plan of courses from now through graduation will encourage realistic expectations and help coordinate the sequencing and timing of courses.

Spring 2016 course offerings

Today marks the first day that departments can edit their spring 2016 course offerings in Banner. All working reports are available in Cognos. The working report contains the course information that rolled from the previous like semester. If a section does not show it may have been canceled in 201510 or had a change to the Banner catalog, such as a credit hour or title change. Departments have access to make edits in Banner until the end of the day on Friday, June 5.

Banner training—Academic Scheduling 101—is available on May 15 or May 22 in room 2213 Kohrman Hall from 3 to 5 p.m. The content is geared toward new and experienced staff. If you are interested in taking this class please contact Laura Thomas. Seating is limited.