[Advice to Divisional Chair Jeffrey Gibeling 3/31/2000]
Regulation 538 is clear that midterm exams must be scheduled during scheduled class hours unless all students agree to an adjustment, and no body has authority to grant exceptions.
We share CCI's concern that coercion of students may be a problem. Nevertheless, there is no basis in the regulations for the distinction that CCI draws between small and large classes or the arbitrary dividing line of 25. The Registrar may not apply different rules to small and large classes, and instructors who manage to conform to DDR 538 - even in a large class - may, as the regulation is currently written, change the exam time. Any attempt either to draw this distinction as an enforceable practice or to have it implemented through class schedule notation requires amendment of the regulation by the Representative Assembly. As a practical matter, any amendment would have to resolve the problem of time conflicts with the activities of other scheduled courses, otherwise instruction in those other courses could be disadvantaged.
Meanwhile, the Registrar should be instructed to abide by the Regulation; i.e., stop publishing exceptions.