Grading, Office Hours, and Mentoring

4.14 GRADING, OFFICE HOURS, AND MENTORING

Let's take a look at policies regarding grading, advising, and mentoring students.

Making (and Keeping) the Grade

The university uses A through F letter grades that adhere to traditional meanings of A for Outstanding, B for Very Good, C for Average, D for Barely Passing and F for Failure. Plus and minus are optional and left to the discretion of the instructor, but you must state which mode (using plus/minus or not) you will use in class on the syllabus. Each faculty member determines his or her own grading criteria.
A maximum of 18 CSUN units may be taken Credit/No Credit, but this grading option is not allowed for courses in General Education, the major or the minor. Announce these grading policies in class and put them on your syllabus.
In general, the university requires faculty members to keep students’ academic materials from one semester until the end of the first week of the parallel semester one year later. To be safe, we recommend that you keep final exams and other written and/or electronic materials which you do not return to students and which contribute to students’ final grades, until one week into Spring 2025. After that, you should destroy these materials.
All final grades must be submitted online, through the SOLAR grade roster on the faculty portal by the deadline set by the university (December 23, 2024). Failure to meet this deadline impacts the entire university since student records cannot be processed until all grades are entered.

Incomplete “I” Grades: For Exceptional, Late-Occurring Events

Grades of Incomplete or “I” only should be given in the rare instance when the student is passing the class but a small portion of the required coursework has not been completed and evaluated during the regular semester. The remaining assignments should be of such a nature that they can be completed independently. You may give an “I” grade for reasons that you determine are serious and unforeseen. You should not volunteer to give an Incomplete, although a student looking for a late drop might be counseled to consider an Incomplete.
Incomplete forms are available at on this webpage by scrolling down the alphabetical listing to “Incomplete Request.” Upon learning of circumstances that warrant an Incomplete, the instructor and student both should complete and sign a “Request for an Incomplete” form, including the time frame by which the “I” must be completed. This time may be one semester or one year.
When you enter your grades in SOLAR at the end of the semester, you need to include the details of the Incomplete contract you construct with the student. You can use this tutorial to learn how to do this.
If the outstanding work described on the form is not completed precisely within this time frame and submitted by the instructor, the “I” grade will be replaced by a grade of “IC” (incomplete charged) which is counted as an F and no late Changes in Grade will be approved by Undergraduate Studies.

Office Hours

You need to have office hours. The number of office hours you are required to hold will vary with the number of units you teach and your department’s policies. Office hours should be listed on syllabi and submitted to department offices for posting and inclusion on websites.
Students (even those who have been here a while) don’t understand what office hours are for. They think you’re working and don’t want to bother you. They think you’re scary. Some faculty are starting to rename this to "Student Hours." Not sure if that's working, so try to make the students feel welcome; share your expectations of the conversations you are up for in office hours; and mostly don’t be scary.
If a student requests that a parent, guardian or other party participate in your online office hours, please be aware that you are not allowed to speak with anyone but the student about his or her academic career without first obtaining a signed release from the student. This regulation is part of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974. FERPA rules apply even if the student is younger than 18 (not unusual for freshmen) and even if the parent is paying the student’ educational costs.
Students will, of course, also seek you out for advice and guidance. Unless you’re just desperate for new things to learn, you probably don’t want to commit our GE plan to memory. It may be helpful, however, to know where the courses you’re teaching fit into a student’s degree. Are they electives? GE courses (in which case they won’t have many if any of your own majors), major courses, graduate classes? Students may also ask you about what they can do with the major or whether graduate school is right for them. Being open and inviting of those conversations is really important to student success.
Mentorship is critically important to student success. Please be there for your students in that way. But, also don’t be hesitant to refer them to an advisor if they ask a technical question about GPA calculation, applying for graduation, or the like!

Advising & Mentoring

CSUN has a terrific team of professional staff advisors throughout the campus. We have a center called the Matador Advising Hub (or just The Hub) for most incoming first-time freshmen. New transfer students are advised either in the Student Services Center/EOP offices in the colleges (sometimes called “the satellites”), by department advisors, or in the Advising Resource Center/EOP.
These advisors are largely responsible for making sure that students are registered in the right classes to keep them on track to graduation, know the rules around majors, minors, general education, and all the other pieces they need to move forward toward their degrees.
Students in the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) are served by the Student Services Satellite. Established in 1969 by legislative mandate, EOP supports highly motivated, low-income, first-generation college students and provides them with modest grants and opportunities to participate in several highly successful high school-to-college transition programs.

You're ready to grade, refer students to advisors, and in rare situations give incompletes. Next, we'll discuss some policies related to online and hybrid classroom situations.