Faculty Information for Fall Quarter 2025

To: All Faculty, College of Liberal Arts

From:

• Kate Murphy, Dean
• Julie Bettergarcia, Associate Dean for Diversity and Curriculum
• Lauren Kolodziejski, Faculty Fellow for Student Success 
• Grace Yeh, Interim Associate Dean for Operations

Cc: CLA Dept. Chairs; CLA Dept. Admin. Coordinators

Subject: Quarterly Faculty Information - Fall 2025

Date: September 11, 2025

CLASS SYLLABI

To support student success, all instructors must provide students with clear and timely information about course expectations in the form of a syllabus. 

Per Academic Senate Resolution AS-644-06, “every instructor shall make available to each student...during the first class meeting, a written course syllabus providing: Instructor's contact information including office hours and office location; a list of required text(s) and supplementary material for the course; methods and expectations for assessing/grading student performance for the course; attendance requirements and make up policy (if applicable); other information the instructor deems necessary to assure the student's understanding of the nature, requirements, and expectations of the course.” 

Syllabi should be made available to students in an accessible electronic form, such as through Canvas. While the requirement to review the syllabus during the first class can be interpreted flexibly, instructors should ensure that student questions about course expectations are addressed promptly.  

Recommended Inclusions

Instructors are strongly encouraged to include clear policies regarding academic integrity, the use (or non-use) of AI tools, classroom climate expectations and attendance. Sample syllabi statements and information about related campus resources, including those supporting students with disabilities or undocumented status, can be found via this link.

OFFICE HOURS

Pursuant to university policy (AS-886-20), all Cal Poly faculty are expected to conduct office hours each week for student consultation scaled to their teaching assignment. Minimum weekly office hour scheduling shall be scaled to instructional assignments as follows: 

“Tenure-line faculty whose instructional assignments have been reduced to zero WTU but who are involved in research or other projects involving supervision of students shall hold a minimum of one regularly scheduled in-person office hour.” In accordance with this policy, “Asynchronous communication (e.g., email) with students and ad hoc appointments to meet with students are expected normal instructional duties distinct from scheduled office hours.” 

Due to the continued nature of varying instructional modes, the college requests that faculty assign at least half of their office hours as regularly scheduled rather than by appointment and encourages the use of interactive technologies such as Zoom meetings to help create more personal interactions with students when meeting for office hours. Faculty office hours should be posted on department websites by the beginning of the second week of instruction.

University Office Hour Policies 

STUDENT SCHEDULES & ENROLLMENT

Guidance about add-drop processes and schedules, grade change rules, examination schedules, and general standards for classroom conduct and integrity in one’s academic work will assist in preventing student issues from occurring during the quarter. Since registration procedures continually change, please highlight the following in messaging to students via the syllabus, on Canvas, and through an in-class announcement:

• Correct enrollment is your responsibility. Please double-check your class schedule in your Student Center from your portal. Note that Canvas access is not a reliable way to confirm your current enrollment.
• If you need to withdraw from a class after the end of the Add/Drop period (Monday, September 29), there are special procedures/forms for that process. Please obtain that information from the Office of the Registrar’s Drops, Withdraws, and Leaves Website.

Important: 

Encourage students to review their class schedules before the end of the ADD/DROP period to ensure they are enrolled in all courses they intend to take – and not enrolled in any they do not plan to take. If a student stops attending a class or never intended to take it but never officially drops it, they risk receiving an F or WU (equivalent to an F) for that course. Please refer to the Student Planning Calendar for relevant deadlines.

Late enrollment petition:

The late enrollment petition allows a student to enroll after the Add/Drop deadline but during the Late Enrollment Period (see Student Planning Calendar for dates). The petition requires a $20 fee and instructor approval. The petition is available on the Student Forms website: https://registrar.calpoly.edu/registrar_forms 

Withdrawal forms: 

Students have the ability to withdraw from up to 28 units during their time at Cal Poly. They may petition to withdraw from a course or the entire term after the Drop Deadline and prior to the final 20% of instruction for any serious and compelling reason, which may include medical, mental health, financial, or personal reasons. Most petitions during the first 80% of the term are approved. During the final 20% of instruction, students may only withdraw for serious and compelling reasons beyond their control. The last day to withdrawal is the last day of instruction. No withdrawals are allowed during final exams week. The appropriate withdrawal form and additional information can be found on the Office of the Registrar’s Drops, Withdrawals, and Leaves page. See the planning calendar for the dates of relevant deadlines for each quarter.   

Withdrawal petitions for CLA majors are approved by the CLA Dean’s Office. If approved, instructors will receive a copy of the approved petition as a notification. The withdrawal process was recently updated following the passage of an updated withdrawal policy (AS-963-23). As a result, withdrawal requests no longer require that the instructor of record provide a comment on the student's attendance and academic performance. If an instructor has concerns about withdrawals, they should contact the CLA Faculty Fellow for Student Success, Lauren Kolodziejski (lkolodzi@calpoly.edu). 

COURSE MODALITY

Courses must be delivered in the modality (in-person, hybrid, or virtual) in which they are officially scheduled. For courses designated as in-person, a minimum of 75% of scheduled contact hours must be conducted face-to-face. Faculty teaching face-to-face courses may shift up to 25% of contact hours to a virtual format (synchronous or asynchronous) with advance notice to the department chair and/or office. Cal Poly’s definitions for various modalities and the link to the relevant Academic Senate resolution can be found on the Registrar’s Course Policies page.

Any planned use of virtual instruction should be clearly communicated to students and, when possible, noted in the syllabus at the start of the term. Because this 25% allowance also applies to unplanned circumstances such as illness or emergencies, faculty are advised not to pre-schedule the full virtual allowance, in order to retain flexibility.

FINAL EXAMINATIONS

Campus policies require that all courses with a lecture/seminar component have a final examination unless their catalog descriptions indicate otherwise. This may take the form of an exam, final paper, final presentation, or other form of assessment.  Exams/Assessments for lab only, activity only, and one-unit courses take place at the last regularly scheduled class meeting. All other finals/assessments must take place during finals week at the time assigned by the Registrar’s Office unless a change is approved by the Dean’s Office. The assigned day and time for a given course’s final is based on its meeting pattern and can be found on the Registrar’s Final Exam Schedule Website.

Requests from faculty to change the scheduled time of a course final (i.e., for the entire class) should be supported by highly compelling reasons, consistent with CAM regulations, endorsed by the department chair, and received in the Dean’s Office by the end of 80% of the term’s instruction (Friday, November 14, 2025). These requests should be addressed to Interim Associate Dean Grace Yeh (gyeh@calpoly.edu). 

Cal Poly’s Policy on Final Exams allows a student who has more than two final exams scheduled for the same day to request that one final to be moved to a different day. Campus policy asks that faculty “make a reasonable effort” to accommodate such requests. These requests do not require approval from the Dean’s Office or department chair. Students must make this request to the instructor by the end of the seventh week of instruction (Wednesday, November 5, 2025).

Exam Times for Asynchronous Class Sections


Faculty teaching asynchronous courses are strongly encouraged to give asynchronous final assessments. Doing so has several advantages: 

• It helps students who chose to take an asynchronous class because they have an inflexible or unpredictable work schedule. 
• It helps students who chose to take an asynchronous class because classes are in the middle of the night in their time zone.  
• It prevents time conflicts with other finals. 

If a synchronous final must be given, faculty can choose to give said final on the Saturday preceding finals week using a standard final exam time block (7:10-10:00 AM, 10:10 AM-1:00 PM, 1:10-4:00 PM, or 4:10-7:00 PM) or in one of the 7:10-10:00 PM time slots M, T, W, or R of finals week.  

Students should be informed of the time and date of the final exam as soon as possible, and no later than the first day of class.  

If a student has a time conflict between a final for a synchronous/in-person course and an asynchronous course, the instructor of the asynchronous course must offer the student an alternate time to take the final exam.  

CHANGE OF GRADE

Grade changes may be made only for clerical or administrative errors such as mistakes in averaging points or inputting grades, or when the original grade was an Incomplete (I) or RP. Faculty are not allowed to accept additional or missing work after the end of the term, unless the original grade was I or RP. Corrections for clerical errors should ideally be made by the seventh week of the following quarter via the online grade change function within the grading roster (found via Faculty Center in the portal).

Incompletes: Students have up to one year to complete work in a course for which they received an Incomplete. After one year, the I or RP converts to the grade listed as "grade without further work" on the Incomplete contract. If no grade was listed in the “grade without further work” field, the student will receive an F and must re-enroll in the course to get a grade (senior project and thesis courses may be the exceptions). The grade change function within the grading roster allows changes for up to four years in the past. Any grade change for a course (such as senior project) taken more than four years ago needs to be changed using the AdobeSign grade change form, available on the portal in the Academics tab.  

ADVISING

In addition to faculty advisors in the departments, the College of Liberal Arts has professional advisors dedicated to providing effective and inclusive academic advising in an encouraging and welcoming atmosphere. CLA Advisors are available for virtual and in-person appointments (45 minutes) to assist students with registration, academic planning, general education, and other degree requirements, referral to support services, advice about major changes, academic policies and procedures, graduation checks, etc. The CLA Advising Center also offers virtual drop-ins on zoom for quick questions (up to 15 minutes).   

Faculty with advising questions are encouraged to email claadvising@calpoly.edu or call (805) 756-6200. A peer advisor will direct the query to the first available professional advisor.  

CLA Advising Center Hours and Contact Information:

CLA Advising offers students both in-person and virtual appointments. Drop-ins are all by Zoom. Most advisers telecommute two days per week but the office is staffed Monday-Friday.

• 9am-12pm & 1-4pm, Monday-Friday 

• 2-4 PM, Monday - Tuesday 
• 10 AM-12 PM Wednesday - Thursday 
• Extended drop-in hours during Add/Drop period and first round of registration: Mon-Thur 9 AM-12 PM & 1-4PM
• Adjustments to Drop-in schedule are always posted on the CLA Advising website 

Location: Building 47, Room36R

Phone: (805) 756-6200
Email: claadvising@calpoly.edu

CLA Advising Website 
CLA Semester Conversion Advising Website 

CLA Advisors: Sabrina Canady (Lead), Alejandra Cebreros, Catherine Castro, Eric Cuvelier, and Katie Harris. CLA Advising Grad Intern Yazmine Vargas-Castaneda and CLA Retention Specialist Kara Hitchcock also meet with students.

STUDENT ISSUES/CONCERNS

Faculty Fellow for Student Success Lauren Kolodziejski (lkolodzi@calpoly.edu) is the Dean’s office main contact for undergraduate student issues (e.g., substitution forms, change of major, grade changes, Academic Probation/Academic Disqualification, returning students) 

Associate Dean Julie Bettergarcia (jgarci31@calpoly.edu) is the CLA Dean’s Office main contact for issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Associate Dean Bettergarcia is also the main CLA contact for concerns about graduate students, working in collaboration with Cal Poly’s Dean of Graduate Education, Dr. Amanda Lathrop, and her staff.