New Faculty Orientation, Fall, 1999

Office of the Registrar

Visit Web Site: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~reg


Welcome to Rice!

The first priority of the Office of the Registrar is to help you in whatever way we can in matters relating to scheduling classes, registering students, and maintaining academic records. If you have any questions, please feel free to call extension 4999, or send an email message to lbranch@rice.edu. I also encourage you to visit our home page at http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~reg for information on course scheduling and the University's academic calendar. Or better yet, stop by the Registrar's Office on the first floor of Allen Center and get acquainted.

 

Your First Semester at Rice

Rice allows students relatively broad flexibility in developing their degree programs and scheduling their courses. Students are permitted to shop around for courses each semester and may drop and add without penalty through the second week of classes. New students may even drop courses up to the last week of classes. Such flexibility, of course, has a certain price in terms of efficiency in course scheduling. We make every effort to match classrooms with the needs of faculty and students, but at the beginning of each semester, there is an inevitable period of crowding and sorting out of space. Please understand that this is a normal phenomenon at Rice. If you have particular problems with overcrowding at the opening of school over and above those associated with "shopping around," please contact our office, and we will work with you to find a solution.

Early in the semester, you will be issued the class rosters for the courses you teach. Upon request, our office will also provide you with an electronic file of your enrollment rosters. If you would like an electronic roster, please send me an e-mail message requesting a file of your enrollments, indicating what type of desktop computer or server you use. You might also check with your department administrator, many of whom also maintain an electronic file of enrollments. Please note that class rosters at Rice do not indicate whether students are enrolled for a grade or on a pass/fail basis.

Please refer to the General Announcements for detailed information about registration, grade submission, and final exam scheduling. Please also read the Faculty Grading Guidelines in the General Announcements for information on University grading policies, and feel free to consult with us or with your departmental colleagues if you are unsure of grading practices. Rice has a distinctive method of final examination scheduling, in that students are permitted to take their finals according to a schedule that they individually design for themselves. Specific information will be sent to you around mid-semester about the exam schedule. Late in the semester, you will be issued a grade roster for the official submission of grades. In order to issue grade reports to students on time, it is very important that you meet the deadlines for submission of grades each semester. Please note that after the deadline we cannot change grades except in cases of clerical error.

Again, welcome to Rice. We stand ready to serve you in any way we can to make your first experience teaching at Rice as rewarding and fruitful as possible.



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