Academic Policies

Academic Amnesty

Fletcher Technical Community College provides students with the opportunity to restart their academic record by means of Academic Renewal. Academic Renewal can be awarded only by Fletcher once in an academic lifetime and cannot be declared for any period that was previously used for an awarded credential.

Academic Renewal is for students who:

• had an unsuccessful start in an academic program;
• stopped out for a period of at least two years, without enrolling in an academic, for-credit program at any college or university; and
• can demonstrate improvement through performance upon reenrollment.

Application Process for Academic Renewal:

1. The student must submit an application for admission, submit an official transcript from ALL colleges attended (excluding Fletcher), and be admitted to the College.
2. During the first semester of enrollment, the student must be enrolled in an academic program and in at least six (6) credit hours.
3. The student must submit an Application for Academic Renewal along with supporting documents to the Registrar’s Office before or during the first semester of enrollment. Applying for Academic Renewal does not ensure approval.
4. The student must submit a letter of explanation to include evidence that there is reasonable expectation of future satisfactory performance.
5. The Registrar’s Office reviews the academic record to determine eligibility to be considered for Academic Renewal and accordingly approves or denies the request.
   • If Academic Renewal is not declared during the first term of reenrollment, then the student is eligible to appeal for an exception the following semester.
6. Denials of requests for academic renewal may be appealed to the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for a final decision.

Actual Implementation of Academic Renewal:

The actual implementation of Academic Renewal will be contingent upon successful completion of at least six (6) credit hours (with a semester GPA of no less than 2.0) during the student’s first term of reenrollment after approval to ensure academic success. It will be the student’s responsibility to return to the Registrar’s Office for review of academic success.

• If the semester average is less than a 2.0, Academic Renewal will not be implemented on the student’s academic transcript and the approval for Academic Renewal will be null and void.
• If the first term of enrollment after appeal for Academic Renewal is successful with a semester GPA of no less than 2.0, Academic Renewal is implemented on the academic transcript.
  • Only credits with grades of A, B, C, and P will remain as credits earned to be used to satisfy requirements for awards and will be used in the cumulative GPA.
  • Academic Renewal will be noted on the academic transcript.

• All other grades (e.g. D, F, U, etc.) will be flagged for Academic Renewal. These credits will be excluded from credit earned and will not be used in the GPA. In addition, these credits will not be used to meet graduation requirements or to compute the cumulative GPA leading to awards.
• The total cumulative grade point average (excluding courses waived by Academic Renewal) will be considered for academic honors awarded at graduation.

The following standards apply:

• All credits will remain on the transcript as attempted hours and will be used to determine eligibility for financial aid. A student who receives Academic Renewal may or may not be eligible for financial aid at Fletcher. It is the student’s responsibility to contact the Financial Aid Office for more information.
• Fletcher will recognize Academic Renewal granted by other LCTCS institutions without appeal of acceptance.
• Fletcher may recognize Academic Renewal from institutions outside the LCTCS System, but the student must submit a request to apply it to his or her record.
• A non-LCTCS institution may choose to accept or deny the transfer of Academic Renewal granted by Fletcher. Students are encouraged to investigate the Academic Renewal policy if they plan to transfer to another institution.
• Students are cautioned that many undergraduate curricula and graduate professional schools compute the undergraduate grade point average on all hours attempted when considering applications for admission.
• Students must sign the Application for Academic Renewal certifying that they understand the ramifications and accept all the terms of Academic Renewal.

Academic Honesty

An essential rule in every class at Fletcher is that any work for which a student will receive a grade or credit be entirely his/her own or be properly documented to indicate sources. When a student does not follow this rule, he/she is dishonest and undermines the goals of the College. Cheating in any form will not be tolerated. Students must not cheat and/or plagiarize any work submitted for credit, whether prepared in or out of class. Responsibility rests with the student to know the acceptable methods and techniques for proper documentation of sources. Instances of any form of cheating will result in formal College action. Additional information regarding the policies, procedures and sanctions associated with academic misconduct can be found in the Student Handbook. Acts of academic dishonesty include:

Cheating

Cheating is the fraudulent act of deception on an academic exercise by a student who misrepresents the mastery of information.

Unpremeditated Cheating. Unpremeditated cheating is an act of academic cheating taken without advanced contemplation, prior determination, or planning. Examples of unpremeditated cheating include, but are not limited to, copying from another student’s paper, allowing another student to copy from a paper, and/or using the course textbook or other material, such as a notebook, without authorization.

Premeditated Cheating. Premeditated cheating is an act of cheating which grows out of advanced planning, contemplation, or deliberation. Premeditated cheating includes, but is not limited to, collaborating with another person by giving or receiving information without authority and/or using specially prepared materials without authority to do so, e.g., notes, formula lists, etc.

Collusion

Collusion is defined as the unauthorized collaboration with another person in preparing academic assignments offered for credit or collaboration with another person to commit a violation of any section of the scholastic dishonesty rules. An example of collusion includes, but is not limited to, using another person’s computer jump drive despite instructions to the contrary or without authority to do so.

Change of Final Grade/Grade Appeal Policy

Final grades are available to the student through LoLA approximately five days after the end of each semester. The student should review the grades for accuracy. If the student feels there is an error, he/she should contact the course instructor no later than the end of the first week of the following semester. If a student is unable to contact an instructor, the student should contact the department head. If an incorrect grade was recorded, the instructor/department head must complete a Change of Grade Form and submit the completed form to the Registrar’s Office. If the grade recorded is correct and the student wishes to appeal the grade, the student must complete a Grade Appeal Request Form and submit the completed form to the Academic Dean of the course for which the grade is being appealed. The appeal form must be submitted by the end of the third week of the following semester. If the grade appeal is not granted, the student may then request a meeting with the Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs.

Course Drop/Withdrawal Policy

A student may drop or withdraw classes through LoLA. However, if the student is trying to drop or withdraw from his or her last class, the student will need to request to drop or withdraw by completing an Add/Drop/Withdrawal Form. If a student drops a class during the designated drop/add period, the course is removed from the student’s transcript. If a student withdraws from a class after the designated drop/add period but on or before the designated final withdrawal date, the recorded course grade will be a W. A student may not withdraw from a class after the designated final withdrawal date unless an administrative withdrawal is granted by the department head or dean of the course in which the student is enrolled.

Developmental Course Placement Retesting Policy

Students who have successfully completed (with a grade of C or better) the developmental course into which they were originally placed on the basis of a placement test may re-test to see if they can bypass the next course level. Students should not re-test unless they are planning to register for the courses in the following semester.

Incomplete Work

A student may receive a grade of “I” in a course if the student’s current average is a C or higher at the point of determination, based on completed coursework when documented extenuating circumstances cause the student to be unable to complete the required work. The student is responsible for making up all unfinished work within the next semester/session by the designated date. The “I” will be changed to an “F” if all work is not completed satisfactorily by the required date. The student will not be allowed to reenroll for the course until the “I” is changed to a letter grade.

Students should be aware that an “I” grade has financial aid implications and that they should complete the course work as soon as possible. Students may not register for a course that has the course in which they received an “I” as a prerequisite until they convert the “I” into a grade of “C” or above. If all work is not completed satisfactorily by the designated date, the “I” will be changed to an “F.”

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the unacknowledged inclusion of someone else’s words, ideas, or data as one’s own in work submitted for credit. When a student submits work for credit that includes the words, ideas, or data of others, the source of this information must be acknowledged through complete, accurate, and specific footnotes, appropriate citations, and, in the case of verbatim statements, quotation marks. Failure to identify any source published or unpublished, copyrighted or non-copyrighted, constitutes plagiarism. Examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to, undocumented use of any author’s main idea, undocumented paraphrase of an author’s actual words, and/or undocumented, verbatim use of an author’s actual words.

Reading Exemption for Transfer Students

A transfer student who has successfully completed an English course (with a C or higher) that is directly equivalent to Fletcher’s ENGL 1010  or ENGL 1006  will be exempted from providing a reading placement course or score. An exemption code will be entered on the student’s record to allow the student to register for courses without receiving a prerequisite and test score error.