Students will not receive an “F” if instructors fail to submit their grades by the assigned deadline.

The Northern Star reported Thursday that Faculty Senate President Paul Stoddard said that doing this will enforce timely submissions from instructors.

“There is no longer [an option to not record a grade]. If you don’t file grades on time, all your students will get “F’s.” So if you don’t want that to happen, we need to get them in on time,” Stoddard said at a Faculty Senate meeting, Wednesday.

That is incorrect, said Adam Stone, director of registration and records. Stone said that if an instructor leaves a blank for a student’s grade, it will show as blank on the student’s transcript.

“If a student does not make-up an incomplete [receiving an I for a grade] within a certain time, they will receive an “F,”” Stone said, stating that instances like that are the only time MyNIU assigns grades.

Brent Gage, assistant vice provost of enrollment services, confirmed Stone’s statement. Gage also said that an instructor cannot selectively give a blank grade to a student.

“You can’t submit grades unless you submit a grade for every student,” Gage said. “You can’t have a class of 20 students and only have grades for 19 students.”

When called, Stoddard said he had heard it from one of the committees he is a part of, and he didn’t know where the information came from.

“We’re in an influx with the initiation of a new system. It’s going to take some time to make sure we’re on the same page,” Stoddard said Thursday.

Gage voiced similar sentiments.

“It’s the same process we’ve had in the past. It’s just an electronic format versus a paper-pencil one.”

According to the undergraduate catalog, students who receive an incomplete have 200 days after the end of the semester if the grade was given to make-up the work assigned by the instructor. If not, the student will receive an “F.” The catalog also states that students can receive extensions from the instructor to make-up the incomplete, but a final grade must be assigned within a year.

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