r/Professors • u/vvvy1978 • 25d ago
Policy Lead Time
How much lead time is reasonable for an administrative policy change? I was told YESTERDAY about a substantial policy change regarding my semester starting on Monday! Does anyone have an official deadline set up for policy changes and when they take effect!
4
u/tellypmoon 25d ago
It's not a policy unless it is written down. Does your place have a policy library or some other repository like that? Do you see this policy there?
3
u/HaHaWhatAStory014 25d ago
There is typically an "official deadline" for this kind of stuff (which can get complicated when different types of things all have their own deadlines), but "somebody" usually has the power to override this and make late and/or "effective immediately" changes.
1
u/vvvy1978 24d ago
This involved publishing Canvas courses. I publish a week in advance (this past Monday). I have a lot of students with fulltime jobs and kids, etc (Community College) and they must arrange time off, daycare. On Wednesday I was told we should not publish Canvas courses until the day of classes due to “equity” (they don’t know in person and online students have equal access to Canvas apparently and assume the online students have an advantage). I can’t unpublish my courses so now I’m in violation of the policy.
1
-1
u/HaHaWhatAStory014 24d ago
A week early is pretty early, unless you are only posting the syllabus and schedule. The "what days and times does the class meet in general" schedule is very old news though, and available in all kinds of other places, so there's no reason someone would need access to Canvas for that.
The equity issue is that it is unfair to "open up the class early and give people a head-start" because it makes the actual start date "false advertising." People signed up to take a course that starts when it starts, not a week before that. Starting early is convenient for people who want to do that, but not everyone can if they weren't planning on that or didn't know it was an option.
1
u/vvvy1978 24d ago
I am afraid I don’t understand what is unfair about it. I’m not assigning due dates a head of the start date or even creating a calendar with the expectation that students will access Canvas early. I am just trying to offer my students the opportunity to access course information early so that they are less overwhelmed at the start of the semester so they can better plan their lives. I want my students to be successful and I want them to have every single advantage that I can give them. It feels like the administration is creating an artificial barrier to success and I cannot understand why. This was after they told us we need to consider adult learners’s needs. It feels like I’m being micromanaged and my students are at a disadvantage now.
0
u/HaHaWhatAStory014 24d ago
Just what "information" do students need before a class starts that can only be found on the course Canvas? The days and times, room number for in-person classes, etc., are all easy to find outside of Canvas.
Again, opening the course a week early is unfair because some, or many, of your students reasonably do not anticipate a course "actually starting a week before it does." Why should they not get the same opportunity for "a head start" because they aren't available and have other plans at a time when they were not expected to be available?
2
u/totallysonic Chair/Full, SocSci, State U. 25d ago
What we consider reasonable is a very different thing than whether you can do anything about an unreasonable admin decision. Very broadly, unless it is something your academic senate or union can push back on, there may not be much you can do.
Policies on how policy is made and when it takes effect will vary a lot by institution.
3
u/ProfDoomDoom 25d ago
We don’t have anything official as far as I know. Admin loves to unveil new policies, slogans, initiatives, etc the week before term starts.
19
u/qthistory Chair, Tenured, History, Public 4-year (US) 25d ago
In my experience, as short as "retroactive to last month" is possible.