Grading Policy

AFA is the All Faculty Association, the faculty union.

(From AFA ARTICLE 9)

9.05 GRADING:  Every faculty member shall maintain the exclusive right and responsibility to determine grades based upon professional judgment.  The determination of the student’s grade shall be made by the course instructor and — in the absence of mistake, fraud, bad faith, unlawful discrimination, or incompetence — shall be final. 

ATTENDANCE

Attendance in a studio/lecture course is very important. It is imperative that you attend as many sessions as possible. Therefore, your grade may be lowered based upon absences. This class is in person, and you are expected to be present at the very start of class. If circumstances change and we must switch to online, this means you need to be signed in and participating in Zoom sessions at the scheduled time because this will be a synchronous class. You must be logged on with your camera on to be counted as present. Three or more unexcused absences may result in the lowering of one letter grade.

HOW YOU ARE GRADED

I grade based upon your active and present participation in the class, your project results, the quality of your work, your commitment to problem solving, and observable personal growth. If you work hard continually over the semester and complete the projects in an intellectually honest and steadfast way, you will do fine in the class. It is not enough to simply do the minimum if you wish to receive an A or a B. The minimum will garner a C, and less than minimum will receive an F. 

Projects receive points. They are based upon an aggregate response to your process and the physical results. Your final grade in the class takes these points into account, and is weighed along with the overall experience you have brought. 

A project that is completed on time and within the guidelines and expectations defined at the beginning of the project shall receive 9/10 points, a base “A” grade for the project. A missed assignment is given 0/10 points, or an “F”. All other specific project numerical grade valuations will be discussed at the beginning of, and during the project work time. To receive 10/10, you must do something truly special.

Attendance and tardiness will be examined over the project timeframe as well. For each day you are absent, your project will drop one numerical level (a 9/10 will become 8/10 or 7/10, etc.). This applies to tardiness and leaving early as well.

If you miss 4 classes this semester, your overall grade will automatically drop by one letter (an “A” becomes a “B”, etc. As an alternative, I may use my right to drop you from the course under these conditions. School Policy: students, who miss 10% of the semester, can be dropped. This equates to 3.5 total classes. I will make an attempt to discuss your personal issues before I implement this policy.

The individual project grades will be automatically averaged with each earlier project grade to determine your current semester grade. Barring your missing the final, you will leave the class already knowing your final grade. There are no tests, just projects, attendance, participation, and critiques.

There is no bell curve.

POLICY ON LATE WORK

Work may be turned in or resubmitted up to one week after the deadline. If your project is incomplete on the day of the critique, turn in the incomplete project, and update your submission with your finished work before the discussion closes one week after the due date. The project will lose one point per day late. No credit will be given if the project is not submitted before the assignment closes. Turning work in late means that you will not receive valuable feedback on your art, and risk misunderstanding the project parameters. The last project is due on the final and will not be accepted late because it must be critiqued on the day of, and graded in a timely fashion. It is up to the student to CC both the instructor and the TA to inform them if the student has resubmitted an assignment for a better grade.