Help with Faculty & Grades

How to best communicate with faculty and what to do if you feel you are being treated unfairly

Emailing Tips & Templates

How a topic or conflict is introduced often has a major impact on how it is resolved. It is very important to be respectful when asking faculty for help. This applies to extensions, explanations, pre-approval of absences, etc.

Faculty are also great sources of advice and knowledge. You may want to reach out to faculty for career advice, to know when a specific course will be offered, to ask for a recommendation, or just to further discuss a topic from class. They are a wealth of knowledge!

When emailing remember to:

Use a clear subject line.
Send from your ewu.edu email.
Use standard punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar.
Make sure you do your part in resolving the issue.
Be aware of the tone of your writing, the wrong tone can send a bad message.

Please feel free to copy and paste these email templates.

Requesting To Meet Outside of Office Hours

Calling Out Sick

Class Content Question

Schedule Conflict

Present Quarter Dispute

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Generally speaking, when it comes to academic matters, working directly with faculty, then Department Chairs, and then the Dean of the College the course reports to is the stepped approach to navigate most academic issues. If you need further assistance or advice please Contact Student Affairs.

Final Grade Dispute

Purpose

The purpose of the Grade Appeal Policy is to provide students with a safeguard against receiving an unfair final grade, while respecting the academic responsibility of the instructor. Every student has a right to receive a grade assigned upon a fair and unprejudiced evaluation based on a method that is neither arbitrary nor capricious. Instructors have the right to assign a grade based on any method that is professionally acceptable, submitted in writing to all students, and applied equally.

Definitions

Step 1

The student must submit a written request for a meeting and a brief description of the issue to the instructor no later than 10 working days after the start of the next regular academic term after receiving the grade. The deadlines for spring and summer terms are counted from the beginning of the fall term. (If the instructor is no longer at the university or is on leave, the chair of the department or designee will act in place of the instructor).

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

If the student is not satisfied with the written explanation, the student may submit an “Official Grade Appeal” form (available online) within five working days to the chair or designee requesting a hearing with a Grade Appeals Board.

The grade appeal is heard by a grade appeals board which shall be convened no later than 20 working days after submission of the official grade appeal. (The date may be extended if mutually agreed upon by both parties.)