Students dispute deadline change

By Cindy Dinh     4/17/08 7:00pm

As the majority of the senior class prepares for the last round of final exams and the days leading up to graduation, several mechanical engineering seniors have to adjust their schedules to accommodate an unexpected change. Students in the spring semester senior design course Mechanical Engineering 408: Capstone Design Project II, will finish their year with a final presentation on May 5,five days after senior exams officially end. This exception to university standards has stirred controversy amongst students in the class who were looking forward to spending the days between the end of final exams and commencement at liberty. "Everyone was pretty much unanimously inconvenienced by the [decision] because it's in the middle of senior week when most people go and travel," said an anonymous MECH E student from the class, who wished to remain anonymous because he thought appearing in the Thresher might affect his grade.

The senior design presentation, which constitutes a majority of the student's grade, involves communicating via videoconference with project members in France as well as a visit to finalize their project, Mechanical Engineering Professor Fathi Ghorbel said.

"Students spent a weekend in France and then came back, and this is the one time they can get everyone together at the same time for this presentation," Registrar David Tenney said.

---

---

Ghorbel said the course is an international initiative. Students have been working in collaboration with students from three different schools in France and individuals from oilfield and information services company Schlumberger.

Ghorbel said each project has half its students in Paris and half of tem based in Houston. The projects communicate with each other through videoconferencing.

Senior exams end April 30, and senior grades are due May 2. Their grades are due about a week earlier than undergraduate exams, which end May 5, in order to calculate final grade point averages and honors in time for commencement May 10.

Ghorbel received special permission from the Office of the Registrar to delay submitting final grades until May 5 for seniors in his course. In his e-mail to students in the class, Ghorbel said this later date would accommodate the students in Paris.

"This date was chosen in order to give the French students a little bit more time since they started almost a month later than the U.S. students," Ghorbel said in a March 27e-mail to students in his class.

Ghorbel said the May 5 date for grade submissions would ensure the registrar calculates graduation honors on time. He said since this date is outside the final examination period for seniors, however, the senior design presentations that day will not affect the students' grades.

"We don't like to make exceptions, but in this case, because of the international aspect of this, all grades will be included in the honors calculations," Tenney (Sid Rich '87) said.

Although submitted after the deadline, these grades will not affect the calculations for Latin honors, university honors, summa cum laude and magna cum laude, he said.

Tenney said he does not expect this deadline to affect the speed and efficiency of calculating final grades because of the online system.

"Ever since we went to online grade entry, things have improved 200 percent," Tenney said.

A year and a half ago, registrars entered grades manually for every student. This process would take several days, but upon shifting to ESTHER, the process was streamlined to take 15 minutes.

Tenney said the new system is helpful in situations like this.

"Even though Professor Ghorbel is in France, he'll be entering grades via the Internet and once he hits 'submit,' we'll be able to calculate grades instantly," Tenney said.

According to the anonymous student, Ghorbel sent an e-mail to students in the course asking them to reply within 12 hours if the date of the rescheduled senior design presentations posed a problem. The student said he was confident that several students had conflicts with the later date of the final project. Ghorbel later sent an e-mail stating that the vast majority of people involved said they found May 5 most convenient.

Students in the class have been working in collaboration with students from three different schools in France and individuals from oilfield and information services company Schlumberger.

"It's been just a lot of concern that the course requirements have been different for students that have been on international teams," the anonymous student said. "Deadline shifts have crated a different course for the people on an international team."

Jocelyn Wright contributed to this article.

---