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Friday - Make-Up Day

Today is the day I designated for all the students in all my classes to have to take any make-up exams they needed from the semester. I started this single day make-up policy about four years ago because a) the shear number of exams I gave in a semester (this semester I administered well over 1000 exams during the semester)and b) more and more students were requesting make-up exams.

The semester before I enacted this policy, I counted the number of make-up exams requested and it was 104! That is roughly 10% of the total. The shear number of make-up exams and the wide array of schedule conflicts meant I was administering make-up exams all the time in this old method. I hypothesized (correctly, I believe) that the vast majority of these 104 requests were due to students a) not being prepared or b) students getting stressed out.... not due to a serious illness or family emergency.

This semester, with the new policy, I have only 9 requests for make-up exams! That an order of magnitude less! It is less than 1%! So, the policy seems to have done its job... reducing my workload, making students take responsibility for their educational life (not requesting make-ups because they feel unprepared) and still leaves the option of a make-up for legitimate excuses (severe illness or family emergency).

After the make-up exam session and a few meetings today, I am seriously contemplating visiting my elderly father-in-law this afternoon. A few refreshing libations would be very pleasant indeed. In anticipation of this relaxing time, I have also refrained from my beloved pipe since roughly 8pm last night... I do this so that my first indulgence with my pipe while relaxing with my father-in-law will even more delightful and relaxing.

PipeTobacco