Department Standards of Scholarship Report Action

https://www.graddiv.ucsb.edu/policy-procedure/academic-performance-and-progress#Performance-Standard

1 Overview
2 Things to Know
3 How to initiate a Department Standards of Scholarship Report
- 3.1 Step 1 - Submit Department Standards Report - Completed by the Staff Graduate Advisor
- 3.2 Step 2 - Approve Department Standards Report - Completed by the Faculty Graduate Advisor
4 Graduate Division Review and Finalization
5 Resolving Standing for Departmental Standards of Scholarship

Overview

If a student fails to pass master's exams, comprehensive exams, or qualifying examinations, cannot form a master’s thesis or doctoral committee, or fails to meet other departmental milestones, the Department Chair or Graduate Advisor may recommend monitoring status, academic probation, or academic disqualification to the Graduate Dean.

The order of this workflow is as follows:

Request an updated Academic Progress Plan from the student (Staff Graduate Advisor)
Create the Report which includes providing the details of the situation and uploading the Academic Progress Plan to the Follow-Up Action in GradPoint (Staff Graduate Advisor or Faculty Graduate Advisor)
Approve the Report(Faculty Graduate Advisor)
Review the Report, create the notification letter (Academic Services Staff)
Approve the Report, which results in the notification letter being sent and finalizes the process (Graduate Associate Dean/Dean)

Things to Know

Usually students are placed on monitoring status for at least one quarter before being escalated to probation (since a consequence of probation is the loss of funding/employment)
In certain circumstances it may be appropriate to place a student on probation without a quarter of monitoring first, such as when a student fails the first attempt at a qual/comp exam, and only has one attempt left.
Please read https://ucsb-atlas.atlassian.net/l/c/aEvXf19u and Standing Tab | How Academic Status Effects Funding

How to initiate a Department Standards of Scholarship Report

First collect an Academic Progress Plan for the student that outlines the departmental expectations and the steps that the student needs to complete that quarter to make adequate progress. This can include scheduling/taking exams, enrolling in the right coursework, nominating a committee, submitted thesis/dissertation chapters, etc. The progress plan should be specific to the individual student and what they need to do that quarter.

In this case, the Faculty Graduate Advisor or the student’s personal advisor should create a progress plan and submit it without the student’s signature. This should only be done in cases where the student isn’t responsive. Ideally, the student participates in the progress plan process in order to ensure that all parties are on the same page with expectations.

Navigate to the student’s Action Tab in GradPoint Academics by searching for the student and going into their Action tab. Note - you must initiate this from the student’s action tab (not the Main Actions Tab)
Click the Begin Action button
In the Action Category dropdown, choose Academic Performance & Progress Tracking, and in the Action dropdown, choose Department Standards of Scholarship Report

Step 1 - Submit Department Standards Report - Completed by the Staff Graduate Advisor

Yes, the Faculty Graduate Advisor can also complete Step 1, however the Staff Graduate Advisor is usually responsible for collecting the Academic Progress Plan, so it is expected that the Staff Graduate Advisor will usually complete Step 1.

Enter the Report quarter (required)
- Indicates the quarter you want the Standing Status to begin
Enter the Suggested Standing (required)
- Either monitoring or probation

Select the Report Reasons (required)
- You can choose more than one as necessary
  - Failure to Form Committee - If the student cannot form a committee, or their advisor decided to no longer work with the student, etc
  - Failure of Comprehensive/Qualifying Exam - If the student didn’t pass a milestone exam, such as a master’s comprehensive exam, the written or oral qualifying exam, etc.
  - Failure to Meet Department Standard - Any other departmental standard
Enter the Situation Description (required)
- Explain why the department is making the request. How is the student not meeting departmental standards of scholarship? Be specific.

Upload the Academic Progress Plan (required)
- Check to make sure you uploaded the correct document, if not, you can click the Browse button again to upload the correct document.
Upload supplemental documentation (optional)
- These are documents that you think will help the Graduate Division evaluate the case, such as emails from the student’s advisor describing the situation, or excerpts from your Graduate Handbook that help explain how the student isn’t meeting departmental standards.
- Check to make sure you uploaded the correct document, if not, you can click the Browse button again to upload the correct document.

You can leave comments about the step as needed.
Submit the step, which will move the workflow to Step 2

If you have not hit submit on Step 1 yet, you can cancel the action via the Admin Tab. If you are in Step 2, the Faculty Graduate Advisor/Department Chair can deny the action.

The data and the documents in Step 1 are not saved until you hit submit. If you refresh the page or leave the page before hitting submit, you will need to fill out all of the fields and upload the documents again.

Step 2 - Approve Department Standards Report - Completed by the Faculty Graduate Advisor

Yes, the Department Chair role can also complete this step, however it is expected that this will be done by the Faculty Graduate Advisor.

Review the information entered on Step 1
The fields can be altered and documents reuploaded as needed. The supplemental document can be replaced, but it can’t be outright removed in this step.
Click the approve button to move the workflow to the Graduate Division
Clicking deny will end the workflow without sending the request to the Graduate Division. You would only click deny if you changed your mind and didn’t want to go through with the recommendation.

Graduate Division Review and Finalization

Academic Services staff will review the request and progress plan, and create the standing letter draft. We might reach out to you for clarification as needed.
Associate Dean will review outcome, plan, and notification letter
1. When approved by the Associate Dean
  1. The letter will be sent to student, staff graduate advisor, and faculty graduate advisor via email
  2. The letter and plan will be archived and available in the student’s Documents Tab in GradPoint
  3. The new Standing Action (monitoring or probation) will be applied and visible in the student’s Standing tab in GradPoint
  4. The original Follow Up Action Record will be resolved
  5. A new Follow Up Action for the next quarter will be created

Resolving Standing for Departmental Standards of Scholarship

Departmental Standards follow-ups cannot be cleared via an automated process, as these cases are based on standards that the Graduate Division cannot detect. All Departmental Standards cases that have been resolved will need to be resolved by the department by submitting the