Tech Professor Said Entering Grades Quite A Task

Tennessee Tech’s fall semester has come to a close, with exams underway.

A professor said the end of a semester may be one of the busiest times.

Tennessee Tech College of Education Department Chair and Professor Jeremy Wendt said entering grades at the end of a semester is a huge undertaking. Wendt said with the high stakes meeting the deadline of entering grades is stressful.

“Trying to tie up all those loose ends and chase down those missing assignments because it can come down to one assignment that someone overlooked or they didn’t do well on and they got to make that up and so the faculty are just as invested as the students.”

Wendt said the university’s deadline for grades to be entered for the fall semester was the Monday after graduation. Wendt said although extremely rare there have been cases where a student walked at graduation without receiving enough credits for a diploma.

“It does occasionally happen it’s just the nature of the beast,” Wendt said. “As you sit through a high stakes final exam or you have a giant project that is due, it does happen that occasionally there has to be an incomplete or someone wraps that up after the fact or in the very rare occasion there may be a failing grade that someone has to work on again in the following semester but as you can imagine with over 10,000 students it is a very rare case.”

Wendt said the university uses multiple programs for entering grades. Wendt said part of the process is transferring those grades to a different program.

“There’s a secondary system that talks to student transcripts and so that is one of the steps in the process is moving grades from that point to the other point and entering that allows us to put grades on final transcripts.”

Wendt said the end of a semester is a mad dash to close up the semester. Wendt said professors will enjoy the Christmas break to recharge for the spring semester.