Instructor Responsibilities

Teaching and Learning: Instructor Responsibilities

Effective: January 3, 2011

Version History: This policy was previously part of the former Teaching and Learning: Instructor and Student Responsibilities policy originally approved by EPC on April 14, 2010, approved by Campus Assembly November 9, 2010; revised by TLC March 12, 2014, approved by EVCAA May 6, 2014; revised by TLC November 19, 2014; revised by TLC 4-17-19, approved by EVCAA 5-22-19. The current policy’s review was confirmed by UCC April 23, 2024, approved by EVCAA June 26, 2024; UMN Reasonable Accommodations for Disabilities resource added October 29, 2024 

Policy Owner: Academic Affairs

Policy Contacts: Jennifer Mencl (undergraduate), Erik Brown (graduate)

 

UMD is committed to providing a positive, productive, safe, and inclusive learning environment for all students and instructors. 

Teaching and learning at the university take place in a variety of educational settings including on-campus lecture halls and classrooms, laboratories, field sites, and online. Instructors and students have mutual responsibility to ensure that the environment in all of these settings supports teaching and learning, is respectful of the rights and freedoms of all members, and promotes a civil and open exchange of ideas.
 

Instructor Responsibilities

A. Promote a respectful teaching and learning environment

Instructors are responsible for modeling and maintaining a respectful and productive learning environment. To this end, instructors should articulate classroom behavior expectations at the beginning of the term and reinforce them as necessary. Instructors are expected to take appropriate and immediate steps to curtail disruptive classroom behavior.  Such steps may include speaking to the offending student, asking the offending student to leave the classroom, or calling 911. A guide to help instructors respond to behavioral disruptions is located under Teaching and Grading Resources.
 

B. Deliver a course that is consistent with the course proposal including the course description, content, objectives, and level, as well as with the class schedule including instruction mode and applicable scheduled meeting pattern(s).
 

C. Provide information about courses

  1. Instructors are responsible for providing accurate and timely information about their courses to enrolled and prospective students and to the University community. 
  2. Instructors must provide a course syllabus to enrolled students during the first week of classes. This syllabus may be in written or electronic form and should contain information that students need to know in order to complete the course to the best of their abilities. The UMD Syllabus Policy describes the required and recommended content of a syllabus. Instructors are also required to provide a copy of the syllabus to the department offering the course for every class, every semester (fall, spring, and summer terms).
  3. The instructor must inform the class in a timely manner if changes to the syllabus information are made. No major change (e.g., adding a research paper or major examination) should be imposed after the second week of the fall and spring terms and the first week of 5-week, 7-week, and summer sessions.
  4. Instructors must ensure that all locations where class descriptions are located (e.g., class URL, UMD Catalog, department web pages) are updated as necessary to help students make decisions about course registration.

 

D. Provide students with access to and feedback on their work

  1. To help students achieve the course objectives to the best of their abilities, instructors are responsible for regularly evaluating student work, returning student work with clear and constructive feedback, and clarifying this feedback as needed.  So that the student can benefit from this feedback, evaluations should be communicated to the student promptly. 
  2. Term papers and comparable projects are the property of students who prepare them (see Board of Regents Policy: Copyright). Instructors who desire to retain a copy for their own files should state their intention to do so.
  3. Instructors are required to provide graded feedback to their students no later than the end of the sixth week of regular fall and spring terms, or earlier if possible, to enable students to assess their progress in the course prior to the deadline for withdrawing from the course at the end of the tenth week of the term. During 5-week, 7-week, and summer sessions, instructors should provide sufficient graded feedback early enough before the deadlines for withdrawing from classes so that students can evaluate their course progress.
  4. Instructors are required to provide midterm alerts to students in their 1xxx- and 2xxx-level courses who are performing at the D, F, or N level, in accordance with the Midterm Grade Alert policy. 
  5. Instructors must turn in grades within three business days after the last day of final examinations.

 

E. Comply with FERPA data privacy regulations

  1. Instructors must be knowledgeable about and comply with regulations governing privacy of student information (FERPA).
  2. Instructors are responsible for maintaining security of student work including examinations both before and after exams are given. 

 

F. Observe scheduled class times

Instructors are expected to normally run their courses for the length of the session shown in the class schedule regardless of delivery mode, meet their classes at the scheduled times, to be prepared for all class sessions, and to start and end classes at the scheduled times. However, when a class’s scheduled meeting time exceeds the course’s formal instructional time, instructors should adjust the class end time accordingly or provide break time (e.g., an in-person course with 4 instructional hours meets for 200 minutes per week in a 15-week term, and the class meeting schedule could exceed the instructional time). 

When instructors know in advance that they will be unable to attend particular class sessions, they are responsible for working with their academic unit to make appropriate alternate arrangements. Instructors should notify their students via email when unanticipated illness or emergencies prevent them from conducting class. 
 

G. Provide reasonable accommodations in accordance with policies

Instructors have a responsibility to reasonably accommodate students with documented disabilities. (UMN Reasonable Accommodations for Disabilities Frequently Asked Questions)

Instructors have a responsibility to accommodate legitimate student absences and student exam conflicts in accordance with UMD’s Excused Absences and Makeup Work, Exams Outside of Regular Class Time, and Final Examination policies. 
 

H. Provide accessible class materials

Instructors are responsible for accessibility of their classes to the extent that the University provides sufficient resources as determined by faculty in consultation with appropriate staff for accomplishing that accessibility. Examples of resources include materials, time, financial, and personnel (UMN policy: Accessibility of Information Technology). Instructors may work with staff at the University of Minnesota System-level and at UMD. University Resources available to instructors include:

 

I. Maintain the classroom environment

Instructors are expected along with students to reasonably leave the classroom and its equipment in good order (e.g., cleaning boards, asking students to arrange chairs, treating electronic equipment based on posted instructions) (policy: Teaching and Learning: Student Responsibilities).
 

J. Schedule and observe office/drop-in hours and appointment times

Instructors of all classes shall post a reasonable number of office/drop-in hours per week at a time convenient for students and shall be available during such hours for the purposes of consultation with students. The modality of the scheduled times should be appropriate for the class delivery mode.
 

K. Report scholastic dishonesty

When instructors suspect scholastic dishonesty, they are obligated to abide by the Student Academic Integrity policy. 

L. In accordance with UMD’s Grade Accountability policy, instructors of record are accountable for grades given to students. 

Instructors leaving the University are responsible for giving all grading records to their academic departments in accordance with UMD’s policy for Maintaining Course Records.
 

M. Administer student evaluation according to UMD procedures

Instructors are required to administer summative student evaluations in their courses according to UMD Procedures.
 

N. Adhere to the UMD Policy on Final Examinations