WHEREAS, the Faculty Handbook defines the audit (AU) grade and specifies the last day for a student to change to audit as the end of the second week of classes (Sections 8.22 and 8.20, respectively); and

WHEREAS, the Faculty Handbook does not define the student rights or faculty responsibilities for an audited course; and

WHEREAS, the term “audit” is derived from the Latin auditus meaning “to hear”; and

WHEREAS, as discussed in the Course Withdrawal Policy (Section 8.17) while the University has strong justification for controlling a student’s freedom to withdraw from courses at will, students may have justifiable reasons to withdraw;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED

Section 8.20 is revised to read:

Section 8.20 Course Audit Policy

Students may on occasion desire to register for a course as an “audit”. No credit is given for an audit and no quality points are assigned. Auditing a course gives the student permission to attend classes, to listen to the instructor’s presentations and lectures, to participate in class discussions, as appropriate, and to receive handouts associated with the presentations and lectures. Students auditing a course are permitted to ask to participate in graded activities, such as homework, group projects, laboratories, and exams. The instructor is not required to grade any written assignments that may be submitted by an auditing student.

A student who elects to audit a course may not at any point after electing to audit, change to “for-credit”, i. e., graded status.

Up through the fourth week a student may elect to change the grading status for any course from credit to audit. The student must initiate a formal request for change to audit through the Office of Student Records. Any student failing to follow established procedure for change to audit will continue to be enrolled in the class for credit and may receive a failing grade in that course.