Student Concern Policy
There are many avenues available for students to discuss concerns or provide suggestions about different aspects of the undergraduate or graduate program. These mechanisms are meant to offer you a variety of ways to effectively get your questions answered, situations changed, and divergent opinions expressed.
Thus, some mechanisms involve direct discussion of issues with the interested parties, others are less direct such as those in which the Department Chair or Graduate Program Director are approached, and some even make use of parties from outside the Department to intervene on your behalf.
Our observations are that the more direct the discussion, the better the chance of obtaining solutions that are most acceptable to all parties. However, anonymous mechanisms or those involving parties from outside the Department are available for cases in which you have exhausted other avenues or are concerned that other mechanisms will not be sufficient to address your concerns.
Here are the mechanisms provided to address your concerns:
(1) Discuss your concern with the relevant party. Meeting directly with the person whose classroom, supervisory or administrative policy or action is in question is always the best first step since it addresses the concern where it arises. However, that may not always seem possible or may have been attempted, but without a satisfactory resolution.
(2) Discuss your concern with your advisor. If discussions with the relevant party prove unsuccessful, or if you feel more comfortable speaking to your advisor, he or she will be happy to speak with you. They will honor your request for confidentiality. They can tell you what steps are possible for a range of concerns, from your placement to a particular grade.
(3) Discuss your concern with the Department Chair for undergraduate issues or the Graduate Program Director for graduate student issues. The Department Chair is also available to speak with graduate students as needed, particularly related to staff or faculty concerns. Either of these individuals will be glad to meet with you to discuss concerns that you may have about any aspect of your program. The Department Chair and the Graduate Program Director will be glad to meet with you to discuss concerns that you may have about any aspect of your program. If you wish to discuss concerns that pertain to a specific faculty or staff member, your decision about confidentiality will be respected. While a request for confidentiality sometimes makes it difficult to take action, attempts will be made to do whatever can be done. Among the most helpful things the Department Chair and Graduate Program Director can do is to offer advice about how to most effectively address whatever the issue is.
(4) Send anonymous email to the Department. You may send a completely anonymous email directly to the Department's Program Assistant who will then forward the information directly to the Chair, Graduate Program Director, or both depending on the concern. To send an anonymous email, please refer to the Quick Links on the right of this page or click on the link above. This mechanism, however, fails to set up a dialogue so that requests for clarification and discussion of potential remedies will need to be addressed to the entire class of students and may make it a less effective mechanism.
(5) Contact the Graduate College Office (for graduate students). This step represents an action that goes beyond the Department and might be helpful if you are concerned about basic Departmental policy that you suspect may differ from Graduate College guidelines or from the policy of other graduate Departments--or if you believe that Department mechanisms have not been or would not be sufficient. You can contact the Graduate College and arrange to speak to the appropriate administrator.
(6) Contact the Dean's Office in the College of Arts & Sciences (for undergraduate students). This step represents an action that goes beyond the Deparpment and might be helpful if you are concerned about basic Departmental policy that may differ from the College of Arts & Sciences guidelines or if you believe the Department mechanism has not been or would not be sufficient. You can contact the College of Arts & Sciences and arrange to speak to the appropriate administrator.
(7) Address your concern to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's Council of Academic Accreditation (CAA). If a complaint is related to the program's compliance with standards for acceditation, students may contact CAA by email at accreditation@asha.org. or by phone at 301-296-5700 or 800-498-2071.
We hope that this information will help increase your satisfaction with your undergraduate and graduate educational experience in the Department of Communication Sciences.
Last modified October 16 2009 03:49 PM
