First time ever...

This is the first semester in my entire teaching career when I was in town, on campus--and unable to turn my grades in the final official day of classes. I am held up in part by a student to whom I offered a last-minute withdrawal: I don't know why he thought he had any chance of passing the class, as his first papers all got below-failing grades--but then again, I don't know why I didn't notice that earlier and let him know he should get the hell out. I think I did give him an early warning, but he needed another, and another. I imagine he's pretty pissed off--and when he shows up tomorrow with the withdrawal form, I could offer him a mercy D--but I am human, and I do make mistakes. Ah well.

I actually have the numbers crunched for all the classes, and I could (apart from that one student) go on Banner tonight and enter the grades, but I still have to fill out the stupid, idiotic, ridiculous and ought-to-be-replaced-with-an-electronic-form paper grade forms, in which I explain what marks the student got for each assignment and what the relative weights are. I understand the need for that information; what I don't understand is why I'm still doing it on paper.... (Not just me. All of us. Stupid, I tell you. Stooooopid.)

Meanwhile, Mr. Enthusiastic-but-Disappeared from the Native American Lit class e-mailed me over the weekend saying that he urgently needed to talk to me. I knew what was coming: even though he bailed on the semester half-way through, he was going to tell me his travails and ask for a passing grade. I had said he could have a "mercy D"--but that was predicated on his actually being there and turning in some kind of work. He was profoundly upset, and I understand that he is in a terrible situation--and that my class wasn't the only one causing a problem. But as I told him, this is one of those unfortunate situations when life simply sucks, is just flat horrible--but that in fairness to all my students, I can't make an exception for him, no matter how awful his circumstances. I offered him the W, but he didn't feel he had the time to get the paperwork done. I'll give him the UW--and hope for his sake that A) eventually, policy is changed so that grade is no longer punitive (right now, a UW computes in his GPA as an F) and B) when the policy is changed, it's retroactive on transcripts.... I know there's a potential can of worms there, as the UW can affect academic standing, blah blah blah, and really, generally speaking, I don't care what happens with the policy--but, for this one kid's sake, it would be nice if he could get out of the class without the hit.

On the other hand, he had all semester to see me about what was going on, more than a month in which to get the W processed, if he'd been on it--and in fact, he contacted me ages ago about an "urgent" need to meet me and then didn't follow up on it, so, well, this is how we learn things, right?

But as of now, I'm exhausted. It's after 8:30 p.m., and I have to be back tomorrow morning.for scheduling--and I'm really brain fried. I'm going to need all the brain I can summon tomorrow, not just for the scheduling but to finish the paperwork and computer entry of final grades. I'm going to stagger off for some dinner and then home to collapse....