"Ensure Academic Success"Interact with Faculty
"It's important for you to get to know your professors. All professors should have office hours and you should utilize these times for clarifications and questions on class material and assignments. It's particularly wise to visit your professor and get advice before taking an exam or handing in a paper. Don't be intimidated by them; professors are here to assist and educate you, and welcome the opportunity to meet with students who show initiative in learning about the topic. [...]
"Every class will provide students with a course syllabus. This [sic] should provide a description of the course, a description of what you will learn in the course, the materials you will need for the course (textbooks), how to contact the professor wit [sic] questions, and what major assignments or exams will be required for the class. Successful students read the syllabus thoroughly and carefully and thenuse [sic] it to scheudle [sic] their classes, assignments and tests on a calendar"
Success Within Reach Student Handbook 2012-2013 http://www.albany.edu/studentsuccess/handbook.shtml
Christine A. Bouchard's Office of Student Success recommends reading syllabi "thoroughly and carefully," but Student Handbooks: not so much. The 2011-2012 Student Handbook had the same sentence fragment and typos in it: http://www.albany.edu/studentsuccess/ALBANY_Handbookfinal.pdf (though the 2010-2011 one did not: http://www.albany.edu/studentsuccess/ALBANY_Handbookfinal.pdf). UAlbany's Office of SS has a tantalizing slogan that goes something like, "We Put Success Within Reach... And Then We Cut Off Your Arms." The SS might approve of students engaging in thenusing and scheudling, but I find it all objectionable. I like things thoroughly unthenused and unscheudled.
Professors sometimes don't include everything on a syllabus that they're required to include on a syllabus ("requirement" has a pretty flexible meaning when it comes to UAlbany). I once had to file a FOIL request for end-of-semester changes a visiting assistant professor made to the syllabus for a class in which I was registered, since he didn't provide me (or any other student, as far as I know) the information. I was charged $30.00 for that information, since the Records Access Officer bundled all my requests together and wouldn't even let me pay for my own grades separately.
Indeed, I had the distinct privilege and honor of being charged $30.00 to obtain my own grades. Tuition money, people might be dismayed to learn, no longer covers professors distributing grades to students: that costs extra. Professors have the right to choose not to distribute grades, but to instead deliver final grades to the University Registrar without having informed students of the grades for all of their assignments, quizzes, exams, etc. and without having informed students how those grades will be calculated when it's in a manner other than the one on the syllabus that was distributed at the start of the semester.
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