By Alex LaSalvia and Audrey Martin
Boston University Provost and Chief Academic Officer Jean Morrison sent out a university-wide email Jan. 22, encouraging both students and professors to keep in mind that final exams should be given on university-scheduled final exam dates, and not on the last day of class or during the reading period.
Morrison said she has been sending this email out at the start of the semester for “as long as [she] can remember” as a reminder that the university exam matrix was created for a reason.
“I understand that when you’re thinking ahead to exam period at the end of spring semester, people are looking forward to leaving for the summer, and in the fall semester people are looking forward to intersession,” Morrison said, “but it’s an extremely important time in the academic life of students.”
Morrison said that although she understands that it’s tempting for students and faculty to end the semester early, when too many professors ignore the exam matrix, it leads to overworked and stress-ridden students.
“The problem is then for many students if people do that, you could wind up with far too many extremely important exams projects due on the last day of class,” Morrison said.
Despite some students and professors loathing the Thursday and Friday of the exam period, the schedule is intended to help students not become overwhelmed, Morrison said.
“We build into the time table the study days and then the spread-out final exam period in order to allow students the time to learn and do the work that is necessary to really complete the semester’s work,” she said, “and to do so in a way that’s not insane in terms of competing demands from multiple courses.”
Morrison added that every semester she has students calling and writing into the registrar’s office about feeling like they have too much on their plate at the end of the semester.
“Nobody should pressure anybody to have the final exam on any other date and time than what is in the final exam schedule,” she said.
BU spokesperson Colin Riley also emphasized the importance of providing students with enough time to study.
“This is an annual reminder to faculty of the importance of adhering to the final exam schedule so students have the same opportunity to take advantage of the study period,” Riley said.
Hardin Coleman, a professor and Dean Emeritus at the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development, wrote in an email that he doesn’t typically give finals for the classes he teaches and instead has his students give presentations over the last few days of class.
“My [g]uess is that the Provost is asking us to maximize the use of scheduled learning time by using all the dedicated classes and then do the assessments at the scheduled time,” Coleman wrote. “I think the impact of student learning (both content acquisition and time management) of too many assignments is variable by course and discipline.”
Ian Crowell, a sophomore in the College of Engineering, said he’s had finals on the last day of class instead of during the exam period.
“I think whatever works for the class is what they should do,” Crowell said. “Maybe it standardizes the schedule more, makes it easier to do well on the finals because there are projects due at the end of the semester, as well.”
Molly German, a sophomore in the College of Fine Arts, said that she saw the email and can understand both sides.
“A lot of my teachers have done that, and then that ends up meaning a lot of my tests are on the same day, which I don’t particularly enjoy,” German said. “But sometimes that also makes them spread out more, or at least less total tests during finals week is pretty nice.”
German said that having an exam early is particularly helpful for exams scheduled later in the week because students don’t have to stay on campus as long.
Dani Chaum, a sophomore in the College of Communication, said that although she personally likes having exams on the last days of class, she understands why it can be an issue for other students.
“As someone who gets really stressed out during exam week with the hype of exam week, I like that some exams are during the class period and not during exam week,” Chaun said. “It would probably make things easier for everyone if they were all at the same time because if you do have an exam the week before, you have to push all your homework back for a different class, and it gets to be a lot.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors for posts with multiple authors or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
