Academic Policies and Procedures - All Campuses

Registration

Grades

  A student’s academic achievement is recorded on the permanent academic record in terms of the following grades:

Use of “+” and “-” following a letter grade is at the discretion of the individual faculty member.

Additional Transcript Designations

While not grades per se, the following designations are used on academic records in lieu of grades in certain instances:

I - Work incomplete. An incomplete is given at the discretion of the instructor when the quality of work is satisfactory but the course requirements have not been completed for reasons of health or other circumstances beyond the student’s control as determined by the instructor.

Each incomplete assigned must be accompanied by a contract statement agreed to by both the instructor and the student as to:

1. What work remains to be completed;
2. How the work is to be evaluated;
3. A deadline for completion of the work, which can be no later than the following: (a) April 15 for an incomplete given in a course taken the previous fall semester or January term, and (b) November 15 for an incomplete given in a course taken the previous spring semester or summer term. Each incomplete must be accompanied by a contingency grade, in the computation of which the instructor has assigned a failing grade to the work not completed. This contingency grade will be the grade finally recorded for the course if the Registrar does not receive another grade by the contract deadline.
   An incomplete must be completed before graduation.

IP - In progress. An in progress designation is used for thesis, research, independent study, internships, community service, and Athletic Training Practica I, II, III, when a continuing project must be extended for legitimate reasons beyond the semester or term. The extension may not exceed an additional semester without approval of the Academic Support Committee. If the work is not 11 Academic Policies and Procedures – All Campuses completed within the stipulated time, as noted by the instructor, the instructor may report a grade in lieu of the F that will otherwise automatically be assigned with failure to complete the course.

AUD - Audit signals regular attendance and participation in the course. No credit hours are earned for auditing courses.

CE - Credit earned by examination.

W - Withdrawal. This designation is given when prior to a published deadline the student so requests. No quality points are entered into the student’s GPA.

AW - Administrative withdrawal. This designation is entered on the record by the Registrar in the case of a student who is officially registered in a course but who has not attended the class and not requested to withdraw. No quality points are entered into the student’s grade point average (GPA).

Grade Point Average (GPA)

For purposes of computing the grade point average (GPA), quality points are awarded as follows:

Only grades earned at Linfield are computed in the GPA (with the exception of the computation of honors at graduation). The GPA is computed as follows: the number of credits earned in any Linfield class for which a letter grade is awarded is multiplied by the number of quality points assigned to the grade earned. The total number of points thus calculated for all graded Linfield courses is divided by the total number of credits attempted in those courses. The resulting figure is the GPA.

Changing of Grades

Once recorded on the academic record, a grade may be changed only at the request of the faculty member, by the Vice President of Academic Affairs as a result of a formal grievance process, or by the Registrar/Registration Office in order to correct a clerical error
or update the transcript in the event that a course is repeated.

Repeating a Course

Except as noted below, a student may retake any Linfield College course regardless of the grade already earned in that course, with the following proviso: the course must be repeated at Linfield. A course that has been repeated and for which the higher grade to date is C- or lower may not be repeated again except by successful petition to the Academic Support Committee. When a course is repeated, students receive the higher grade earned, but no additional credit. The cumulative GPA is recalculated and posted for the semester the course is repeated. Any lower grades are placed in parentheses ( ), and the course title is replaced with the repeat indicator as in the following example: course repeated: mm/dd/yy.

Exceptions to the above provisions are three: (a) Colloquium (IDST 007) and Linfield Entry Colloquium (IDST 008) may not be repeated, (b) INQS 125 Inquiry Seminar may not be repeated except in cases of a failing grade, and (c) a student may be refused permission to repeat a practice-based course in such fields as Nursing or teacher education when, in the judgment of the faculty of those programs, the student’s previous work in the course sufficiently violated professional and/or ethical standards so as to expose the faculty or the institution to charges of professional irresponsibility were it to be repeated. Evidence in support of such a judgment may include adverse evaluations of the student’s work by agency personnel in the practice setting.

Grade Reports

Grades are available to students online at the end of each grading period. Parents of students will be mailed grade reports only if the student has provided the Registrar with a signed request. See FERPA information below.

Transcripts

Students may order a transcript of their Linfield record at any time they are in good financial standing with the college. Official transcripts may take up to two weeks to process; unofficial transcripts may take up to two days. During the grade posting process immediately following semester’s end, the time will increase due to higher numbers of such requests.

The transcript fee is $5 for the first official transcript requested, and $1 for each additional transcript requested at the same time. The college reserves the right to withhold transcripts if the student has unmet financial obligations to the college.