Faculty Information & Responsibilities

This section provides information for faculty on the procedural aspects and responsibilities of teaching classes and being a faculty member at York Technical College.

Academic Calendar

York Technical College utilizes a traditional 16-week semester calendar for the Fall and Spring terms. The summer term is abbreviated. Specific term dates are provided each year from the Calendar committee.

• Fall terms run from mid-August - mid December
• Spring terms run from early January - early May
• Summer terms run from mid-May - early August

Within these traditional semester terms, York Tech offers courses of varying lengths: 4-week, 8-week, and 16-week courses are found in almost every academic division and are built inside of the traditional Fall/Spring/Summer term schedule.

Starting in 2018, the College began offering a 4-week Wintermester term, which runs from mid-December to mid-January. These courses are always 100% online only and are an expansion of the Spring academic term.

Faculty Status

Full-time faculty are hired as 9-month employees for the Fall and Spring academic terms. Summer employment and teaching is not guaranteed for full-time faculty; however, many full-time faculty are able to teach at least a partial load in the summer, if they wish to do so.

Part-Time or Adjunct faculty are hired to instruct specific courses and are only employed during the scheduled academic term. Part-time / Adjunct faculty are not guaranteed employment outside of the specified term; however, many are invited back in subsequent academic terms.

More information related to full-time and part-time/adjunct faculty status and employee benefits are addressed by Human Resources. Additional questions regarding employment status should be directed to your department chair and Human Resources.

Department Meetings

Many academic departments conduct periodic department meetings. Full-time faculty are expected to attend department meetings and adjunct faculty are welcome to attend. Your department chair can provide information related to any applicable department meetings.

Teaching Load

Full-time faculty teaching load varies based on course type (lecture, lab, clinical) and expected faculty instructional load in a given department. Your department chair will explain your teaching load expectations to you.

Adjunct teaching load is based on need and is term-by-term. Department chairs are responsible for ensuring an appropriate number of credentialed faculty are available to instruct courses in their areas. In doing so, a department may identify a need for adjunct faculty for a given academic term. Adjunct faculty are hired on a course - specific basis by academic term, and are not guaranteed employment outside of their current work agreement.

Academic Freedom

York Technical College supports faculty academic freedom. Faculty members are entitled to freedom in the methods used to provide instruction and classroom conversations. However, faculty should be cautious when introducing topics that do not pertain to the course being instructed. It is imperative that faculty and students are freely able to express opinions and critically examine course topics in a respectful environment. In this sense, while faculty opinions may be shared, faculty should be mindful of how their opinion could be perceived by students and how it could create a charged environment.

Individual departments and department chairs work with faculty to ensure assignments and assessments in a course are appropriate and that there are consistent expectations in multiple sections of a given course. Faculty should meet with their department chairs if they have questions related to conducting their course(s) or academic freedom.

Academic Integrity

York Technical College expects faculty to take reasonable measures to aid in ensuring academic integrity and rigor in all courses. The Institute for Teaching Excellence has created Academic Integrity LibGuide site with a short presentation, information, and a quiz, to ensure students understand what is meant by academic honesty and to guide them in their educational endeavors.

However, cases may arise where faculty need to consider that a student may have cheated or plagiarized an assignment. In these cases, faculty should refer to the Student Code for guidance and follow the established College procedure. A summarization of this process and procedure is below, and faculty are encouraged to reach out to their department chair or the Dean of Students (James Robson; jrobson@yorktech.edu) with additional questions.

Step 1: The instructor should speak to each of the students suspected and explain what has been noticed. A Zoom meeting or a phone call is sufficient, especially in online and web-enhanced courses where you do not see the student in person.

Step 2: The instructor must ask the student(s) for their account of what has happened.

Step 3: After speaking with the student, the instructor determines if misconduct has occurred.

1. If you do not feel there is enough evidence to charge the student(s) with a violation, then the process ends.
2. If you do determine that the student(s) has/have engaged in academic misconduct as alleged, you will inform the student(s) about the decision and the academic sanction that will be imposed.

Step 4: If the determination is to impose an academic sanction, an instructor may impose one of the following:

1. Completion of an educational activity relating to the nature of the offense.
2. Assign a lower grade or score to the paper, project, assignment or examination involved in the act of misconduct.
3. Require the student to repeat or resubmit the paper, project, assignment, or examination involved in the act of misconduct.
4. Assign a failing grade for the course.
5. Require the student to withdraw from the course.
6. Egregious or repeat offenders may be referred to the College’s conduct officer for a review of the matter. Such referrals will follow the Student Misconduct procedures and the sanctions that accompany it.

Step 5: If the student is found responsible for the academic misconduct, within five (5) instructional days of the meeting with the student, the instructor must submit a written report about the incident and the sanction imposed (email is fine) to the Chief Academic Officer (Linda Weaver-Griggs, interim) at lweaver-griggs@yorktech.edu and the Dean of Students, James Robson (jrobson@yorktech.edu).

Once the CAO approves, Mr. Robson will send a notice to the student(s) and there will be an opportunity to accept or appeal the decision.

Additional Notes on Academic Misconduct

1. While the process does not require notification of your department chair, faculty are encouraged to apprise the chair of academic misconduct incidents.
2. During Wintermester, when the College is closed, notices to the student(s) will be sent upon reopening of the College, unless it is an emergency. Any appeal will be addressed after the College reopens.
3. The full process is available in the Student Code. Topics related to academic misconduct can be found on pages 5 and 8.

Distance Learning

York Technical College offers multiple delivery methods for many courses. In addition to traditional face-to-face courses, York Technical College offers multiple other course types, each of which have an online or distance education component. The Distance Education Faculty Guide covers distance education, resources, and faculty expectations in detail. All faculty are encouraged to review the Distance Education Faculty Guide.

Course Delivery Methods

Traditional: Traditional courses are in-person courses that meet on a designated campus location and require students to attend face-to-face class sessions to meet attendance requirements consistent with credit-hour expectations.

Hybrid: Hybrid courses are instructed using both online and face-to-face formats. In hybrid courses, a portion of the traditional face-to-face (F2F) instructional time is replaced with online instruction. Hybrid courses have scheduled class meeting times throughout the term and students are expected to attend all scheduled class meeting times. The online portions of hybrid courses are conducted through the D2L learning management system.

Online (Asynchronous): Asynchronous online courses are delivered 100% online through the College’s learning management system, D2L, and are taught in an instructor - led format. There are no specific meeting times or “live” session requirements. All instruction, content, materials, assessment, and communication for faculty and students occurs in the online environment (LMS). Students are expected to participate regularly throughout a course, interact with their instructors and peers, and complete assignments in a chronological fashion consistent with a traditional F2F course.

Web-Enhanced: Web-enhanced courses (synchronous online courses) are delivered 100% online and have scheduled class meeting times throughout the term. Students are expected to attend all scheduled class meeting times virtually through web conferencing technology integrated with the D2L learning management system. Online coursework in web-enhanced courses is delivered through the D2L learning management system.

Attend Anywhere: Attend Anywhere courses provide students the flexibility to determine how to attend class. These courses have scheduled class meeting times, for in-person or virtual attendance, and are also designed to allow students to participate as an asynchronous online student, where they do not have to attend scheduled class meetings. Scheduled class meetings will be streamed for virtual student participation and may also be recorded for viewing in an asynchronous manner. Online coursework, attendance, and grades will be delivered through the College’s learning management system, D2L. Students may be required to complete online discussions, submit assignments through the Dropbox, take quizzes/tests in the online environment, and/or complete other online activities.

Course Materials

York Technical College believes in ensuring students have access to the highest quality materials for all courses, as determined by academic departments and corresponding subject matter experts. Approximately 20% of courses utilize traditional print-based materials and textbooks, while the other 80% of courses utilize Inclusive Access materials. The College Bookstore is managed and run by Barnes & Noble and students should be directed to the bookstore with course materials questions.

Inclusive Access (IA) Materials

Inclusive Access (IA) leverages electronic course materials, including eBooks and publisher platforms (MindTap, MyLabs, Connect, KnewtonAlta). On average, the IA program saves students 40% of the print materials cost and students may opt-out; however, they will need to purchase print materials. Your department chair will be able to tell you if you are teaching a course that uses print or electronic materials. A current list of IA courses is located on the Faculty Resources Course Materials LibGuide.

Academic Advising

Full-time faculty members will have assigned advisees in their program area or designated transfer degree programs; adjunct / part-time faculty are not expected to conduct academic advising with students. It is important for faculty to learn the advising process and where to go for help when advising students. Advising generally occurs each semester through the Navigate platform, for both students and faculty. Faculty will need to access and log into the Navigate for Staff page.

Training regarding academic advising is held no less than annually, and frequently more often. The Academic Advising Page in SharePoint may be useful as well. Your department chair and division office can provide more information about academic advising expectations and answer many of your questions.

Communication & Responsiveness

All full-time and adjunct faculty are expected to check their York Tech email account each business day of an academic term. Faculty are expected to respond to student and business email messages within 1 business day during the academic term. Faculty instructing any distance learning course should review and follow the information provided in the Distance Learning Faculty Guide.

Any phone number given to students should be a York Tech issued number or the appropriate Division office. Faculty are not required to provide personal phone numbers to students and it is not advised to communicate with students on a personal device through methods such as text messaging.

Syllabus

At York Technical College, all sections of a course use the same syllabus. However, faculty are expected to personalize their section syllabi with their contact information, specifics regarding class meeting expectations or instructional expectations, and other information as deemed appropriate by an academic division or department. Information added to a course-section syllabus by faculty may not contradict any department or division guidance, nor may it contradict any institutional policies or procedures.

Office Hours

As outlined by the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education Faculty Workload Procedure, full-time faculty are expected to conduct 8 office hours each week during the Fall, Spring, and Summer (if teaching) terms. Office hours should be clearly posted and provided to students via the D2L classroom. This information may be included on the syllabus in the instructor information section. While it is acceptable to schedule advising appointments during office hours, faculty should refrain from scheduling other meetings, that would require absence from the office hour’s location (either physical office or virtual office via web-conferencing).

Adjunct faculty are not required to provide standing office hours; however, they are expected to be available to meet with students before/after class or other mutually convenient times, as necessary.

Recordkeeping

Keeping records is an essential part of higher education and at York Technical College, we require that faculty keep records related to classroom attendance, grades (gradebook), and instructor syllabus information for a minimum of 5 years. All of these items may be housed within the D2L learning management system for convenience.

Paper / print submissions of any major assessments such as tests, exams, and projects must be maintained for one year after the course end date. Your department chair can provide guidance and help you determine what paper/print submissions need to be kept. Anything submitted through the D2L classroom will be kept automatically, as indicated above.

Attendance

York Technical College is an attendance taking institution. As such, faculty are required to take attendance and maintain those records for a minimum of 5 years. Faculty are expected to take attendance no less than weekly in all courses, and must post attendance records within the D2L learning management system. The College uses a tool called Qwickly to capture attendance. It is fully embedded inside D2L and training is available.

• It is imperative that attendance be taken within the first 3 days of each term. Your department chair can share any departmental standards for this process, such as an online discussion in all online courses, if applicable.
• The date of attendance must be included in the name. If using an assignment name or week 1, 2, etc., the date should also be included.
• Classes with a scheduled meeting time (hybrid, web-enhanced, traditional) should have attendance taken according to the scheduled meeting days/times. Hybrid and web-enhanced courses may also have attendance taken using assignment submission, as appropriate.
• Online asynchronous classes should take attendance based on assignment submission or participation in an online discussion.
• Explain to your students how you will be taking attendance including any assignments that will be used for attendance outside of scheduled class meeting times.

Course Rosters

Course rosters are available through WebAdvisor. Faculty should obtain their class rosters every few days during week 1 of 4-week and 8-week courses, and during weeks 1 and 2 for 16-week courses. If a student is added/dropped it may take up to 24 hours for that to be reflected in D2L and the Qwickly attendance program in D2L. If a student attends class who is not on the roster, you should allow the student to attend that day, but refer them to Financial Aid to ensure the necessary payments have been processed.

If a student is added late to the course or does not appear in D2L, you may need to go back and add their attendance into Qwickly.

It is critical that you are keeping track of official enrollment in the course so that each student on the roster at the end of the semester is issued a grade.

Schedule Adjustment Period

The schedule adjustment period (add/drop) for each academic term is the first two days. During this time, the schedule change can be completed by an advisor or by the student. If a student requests to be added or dropped during the add/drop period, the instructor can process the request in WebAdvisor.

Go to my advisees and select the correct item from the drop-down menu: DROP is to drop a course from the student’s schedule; EXPREG is to register the student if you already know the course and section number; SRCHREG is to search for a course and section that will work for the student. You can add the course from the SRCHREG menu once you have found a course that works with the student’s schedule.

Section Changes

The schedule adjustment period varies from two - five days depending on the term and day of the week classes start. Students should work with their advisors to make approved schedule adjustments during this time. However, students sometimes experience conflicts that arise after the schedule adjustment period.

Students who need section changes should discuss this need with their instructors and can request a change through the academic division office. Students will need to provide a reason for the change and obtain signatures from the current instructor, the new section instructor, the department chair, and either the Dean or AVP for the division.

A student request can be denied if:

• The student does not present a valid reason for making the change.
• It is too late in the semester.
• There is no room in the course they wish to transfer into.
• Their academic performance in the existing section is unsuccessful.

Never Attends

Occasionally, you may have a student on your roster who never attends class. When this occurs, you should follow the process below. A student who never attends is different than a withdrawal for financial aid purposes, so faculty should be sure to use the appropriate method based on a students’ attendance. Submit never attends by the deadline communicated from the College each semester.

Processing a Never Attend

1. Log in to WebAdvisor. Click on the “Faculty” tab.
2. Click “Grading” on the left-hand side of the screen (in the Faculty-Student Information).
3. Under the term drop down box at the top of the screen, choose the appropriate term (ex. 2018FA or 2018FA2) and click Submit.
4. Choose Final in the drop-down box at the top of the screen. (This is an easy step to miss!). Select the class to be graded. You must put a check in the box. Click Submit.
5. To submit a “Never Attend” (NA) simply click the checkbox in the NA column

Withdrawals

A withdrawal may be processed when a student misses more than 10% of class sessions in traditional, hybrid, or web-enhanced courses or more than 10% of assignments in asynchronous online courses. Instructors may also submit withdrawals when students request to be withdrawn from a course.

Considerations for Withdrawing a Student

• It is important that students be withdrawn before 30 days of inactivity or attendance have passed for financial aid reasons.
• Any withdrawal may impact financial aid, scholarships, or have other financial implications.
• Withdrawals are at the discretion of the instructor provided absences do not run for 30 consecutive days and the best interest of the student is being considered.
• Prior to processing a withdrawal, faculty should reach out to the student and inquire about their absences and missing assignments.
• If a student is working with the instructor and actively communicating, the instructor may choose to work with the student rather than processing the withdrawal.
• If a withdraw is processed for a course with a co-requisite, the student should be withdrawn from both courses simultaneously. If the instructors for the co-requisite courses are different, then the two instructors need to discuss prior to either processing a withdraw.
• A student who requests a withdrawal should be referred to financial aid before the withdrawal is processed, as there may be financial considerations that need to be taken into account. The Financial Aid Office is in the Student Services Building (J) and can be reached at (803) 327-8008.
• A student who requests to withdraw with formal accommodations or is pregnant should be referred to the Special Resources Office (SRO) before the withdrawal is processed. Follow-up from the SRO is needed prior to completing the withdrawal.

Processing a Withdrawal

1. Login to WebAdvisor and log in to the faculty menu.
2. Click on “Grading” and select the appropriate semester.
3. Select “Final Grading” and the course in which the student is enrolled.
4. Enter the grade of “W” or “WF” where you would normally input a student’s letter grade in the course.
5. Enter the student’s last date of attendance in the appropriate column. This date is extremely important for financial aid purposes, so make sure to check your records carefully.
6. Submit the final grade of “W” or “WF” for the student.

W vs. WF

• A “W” is a withdrawal with no grading consequences for the student and does not impact GPA.
• A “WF” means “withdraw/fail.” It affects both the student’s grade and is counted as a “F” for GPA purposes. A WF should only be used if the student has a failing grade at the time of the withdrawal and the withdrawal occurs after the midterm point in a class.

Reinstating a Withdrawn Student

If you accidentally withdraw a student from a course, you may request that the student be reinstated. Ask for a reinstatement form the department chair, complete it, and send it forward for approval and processing. Some departments ask that the reinstatement form first go to the direct supervisor, and others request that it go to the academic division office. Please check with your department for specific guidance.

If a student requests reinstatement after being withdrawn, the effect of the reinstatement and ability to complete missing work should be considered. A reinstatement should only be completed if it’s in the best interest of the student and both the student and instructor are confident the student will be able to catch up in a reasonable amount of time.

If the instructor and student agree a reinstatement is appropriate, the instructor will need to complete the reinstatement form from their department chair and send it forward for processing. Students being reinstated should discuss a completion plan, with dates, for any missing work and should be provided clear attendance expectations.