2022-03-22 Latin honors Spring 2022 commencement

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Grant, Kelly A" <kgrant@tulane.edu>
Date: March 21, 2022 at 4:07:27 PM CDT
To: "Lay, J. Celeste" <jlay@tulane.edu>, "Raphel, Colette P" <craphel@tulane.edu>, "Skinner, Lee J" <leeskinner@tulane.edu>, "Barron, Mary C" <mbarron@tulane.edu>
Cc: "Zitzmann, Scott E" <szitzma@tulane.edu>, "Montes, Sarah E" <smontes@tulane.edu>
Subject: FW: Reading Latin honors at commencement - concerns & recommendations



Hi Celeste, Colette, Lee, and Mary, and Scott -

I have been conferring with the Advising team regarding the reading of Latin Honors. The team has put together a mini report (see below), which includes some key recommendation that feel are critical to ensuring the first year of this initiative goes smoothly. I know many people have put a lot of work into making this successful for the students and the institution. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or questions regarding this report or its recommendation.

Many thanks - Kelly

Kelly A. Grant                        

From: Starck, Tamar M <tstarck@tulane.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2022 11:04 AM
To: Grant, Kelly A <kgrant@tulane.edu>
Cc: Montes, Sarah E <smontes@tulane.edu>; Hemphill, Dolores A <dhemphil@tulane.edu>
Subject: Reading Latin honors at commencement - concerns & recommendations

Hi Kelly,

We believe it is important to fully understand the coordination between departments that will need to take place to meet the expectation of having Latin honors announced and honor cords distributed at all NTC undergraduate commencement ceremonies. With senior grades due on Monday, May 16, Advising has just two to three days to certify as many of the nearly two thousand potential graduates as we can before commencement ceremonies begin on the morning of Friday, May 19. Around 600 students, or 30% of the graduating class are expected to earn Latin honors. Advising has the capacity to certify approximately 600 degrees per day at most, meaning 200 students or more receiving Latin honors will not be certified by the commencement ceremonies. 

We have two suggested changes that will likely increase the number of students who are certified before name cards are printed:

• Move up the grading deadline for seniors to Sunday

  Print name cards on Thursday afternoon

• A strategic plan involving the commencement coordinators from each school, Advising and NTC leadership, Registrar’s office, Information Technology needs to be created to address the following challenges and needs.

Challenge: Missing or late posting of grades

Changing the deadline for senior grade posting to 48 hours after finals (Sunday, May 15 if changed this year) could substantially increase how many degrees are certified before their Commencement ceremony if the faculty adhere to that deadline. While changing the date for this year is unlikely to be viable, we strongly recommend that future academic calendars allow for no more than 48 hours between last day of finals and grades due for graduating seniors. This used to be the practice and, while difficult for faculty, is necessary if we are to effectively read Latin honors at Commencement ceremonies.

If an instructor fails to post a graduating senior’s grade by the morning of Wednesday, 5/17, the student will not be eligible to be certified before the commencement ceremony and their GPA will not be updated in time for Latin honors to be printed on the name card used at the ceremony. Students who are still missing grades by afternoon of Thursday, 5/18, and are in the range of Latin honors will not be eligible to have Latin honors read at the ceremony.

Strategies used in the past:

• The Registrar’s office tries to decrease the number of missing grades by sending automated emails to instructors starting on Tuesday, escalating to the instructor and department chair on Wednesday, and to the instructor, department chair and dean on Thursday. This has not been very effective in previous years, and the escalation on Thursday is too late for students to be certified prior to commencement.

  Additionally, the academic advisors start reaching out to individual faculty members by email for missing grades on the Wednesday of the graduation certification period.

Preliminary plans for May 2022 commencement:

• Advisors will prioritize certifying students who have GPAs in the Latin honor range each day of certification (Monday, 5/16 – Wednesday, 5/18).

• With the current grade submission deadline on Monday, very few students will be eligible to be certified on Monday.

  There is concern that prioritizing students who have GPAs in the Latin honor range may slow down processing time for advisors, but we continue to brainstorm about how to eliminate delays caused by the prioritization of degree certification for students with higher GPA’s.

• On Thursday, 5/19, name cards will be printed by IT.  An inconspicuous symbol will be printed on the card if the student has not been certified – those students will be directed to a “Latin Honors” table at the ceremony if they would like to have their GPA checked for Latin honors eligibility. Only those students for whom all grades are posted and whose GPA meets the requirements will be eligible to have Latin honors read at the ceremonies.

• Colette is asking the printing office if they could print the cards Thursday late afternoon so that the students certified on Thursday morning can be included in the print run, decreasing the number of uncertified students who may want their Latin honors eligibility verified at the ceremony.  It is not clear that this will be possible, printing the cards takes a long time and the first ceremony (SSE) is at 8 am on Friday.

• On Thursday 5/19, Advising leadership will collect data from individual advisors explaining why students were not included on the Thursday certified list and this spreadsheet will be disseminated to a point person for each ceremony.

• Specific reason categories will be included on the spreadsheet so that an advisor working at a ceremony can quickly assess what to check for (missing grades, missing transcript, waiting on petition, etc.).

• To try to further reduce the number of uncertified students who want their Latin Honors checked at the ceremonies, a team of advisors will work before each ceremony to check for students who have not been certified, have all final grades reported as of Thursday (exact time TBD by IT/registrar’s office), and are in the possible Latin Honors range. If a student has all requirements met and meets the GPA requirement for Latin honors, a Latin honors sticker will be placed on their card before the ceremony.   

  Advisors will be present at school commencement ceremonies to staff a special “Latin Honors” table. Students who have all requirements completed by the time the report is generated and meet the GPAs for Latin honors can have their honors verified and their name card updated with a Latin honors sticker.

• We hope to have a report provided by IT listing all students who were not certified when the reading card list went to the printer with their current GPA and whether or not there are missing grades. 

  We don’t know yet exactly when that report will be generated (e.g., will it include all grades reported by 5 pm on Thursday? By midnight on Thursday?).

Recommendations:

Early and compelling communication to the faculty urging them to post grades as early as possible.

A change in the grading deadline to Sunday, May 15, if possible for this year, and return to 48 hours between end of finals and final grades due for graduating seniors for future Spring calendars.

School ceremony coordinators will need to create clearly marked directional signs and create a smooth flow to all tables, including the Latin honors table.

The directional and table signs should be hung high rather than at table level so that they can be easily seen in a crowd. Based on previous ceremonies, we expect the majority of students to arrive right before the ceremony begins creating a bottleneck and confusion, and potentially delaying the start of the ceremonies.

Trina Beck and Tamar Starck will be joining the school commencement coordinators at a walk-through of Yulman Stadium to bring these issues to light and help strategize on the check-in logistics.

Statistics based on students who applied to graduate as of 2/24/2022, with projected number of students who will need to check in regarding possible Latin Honors:

School

# apps for degree

% of total

Projected not certified by ceremony (30-40%)

Wild guess RE: staffing needed to check honors/add honors to cards before check-in

AR

52

3%

15-20

1

BS (*likely to get more apps, still under 100 more, might be mostly walking not graduating)

406 (*might end up with 450ish)

24%

120-*180

3 minimum, 5 recommended

LA

601

35%

180-240

4 minimum, 6 recommended

PH

156

9%

50-60

1 minimum, 2 recommended

SE

487

28%

150-200

3 minimum, 5 recommended

UD

13

1%

4-5

1

Thank you for taking the time to read through our concerns and recommendations - we would be happy to have further discussion with you.

Sincerely,

Tamar, Dolores, and Sarah