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Turner College News & Notes

Turner College faculty, staff and students are invited to help celebrate our students’ academic and service accomplishments at the annual Scholastic Honors Convocation on April 24, beginning at 4 p.m., in the Cunningham Conference Center’s Blanchard Hall. More than 100 students are honored at the annual event, which includes presentation of the Faculty Cup Award and Educator of the Year Award.  The CSU Faculty Cup Award, awarded annually at the Scholastic Honors Convocation, is the highest award granted to a CSU student who has earned 96 or more semester credit hours toward a baccalaureate degree at the time of nomination. The student should have graduated at the end of the previous fall semester or should be a candidate to graduate in the upcoming spring or summer term. The student should be at least in the second year of residence at CSU. The award signifies superior academic achievement, participation in university organizations, leadership, service to others, and potential for future achievement. The Scholastic Honors Committee is responsible for the selection of the recipient, based upon the nominations by the university faculty. The Educator of the Year Award is presented by the Student Government Association to recognize and promote teaching excellence among the faculty of the university.  Awardees are nominated by students and evaluated on the basis of knowledge, consistency, dependability and creativity. The winner will be recognized at the annual Scholastic Honors Convocation ceremony and will be presented with an official Educator of the Year medallion and a financial award of $1,500.
Turner College Acting Associate Dean John Finley recently informed Turner College faculty and staff that effective Wednesday, March 25, 2026, CSU faculty or instructional departments may no longer request an administrative withdrawal of a student if a student has excessive absences in a course. Prior to March 25, 2026, the policy allowed faculty to submit an Excessive Absences Request form and recommend that the student be assigned a grade of WF.  This is no longer permitted. Now, a grade of WF will be assigned only when the student or Registrar’s Office withdraws the student past the published deadline to withdraw with a W grade. According to CSU administration, this policy change stemmed from a recommendation by the SACSCOC Accreditation Liaison during the review and updating of the CSU Academic Regulations.  In addition, the previous practice of removal of students from courses for excessive absences did not align with the statement in CSU Academic Regulations: “Non-Attendance does not constitute a withdrawal.  Students are required to withdraw from courses they no longer wish to attend.” This policy change was reviewed and approved by academic leadership across campus on March 25, 2026. Moving forward, students who exceed the allowed number of absences may be assigned a grade of “F” at the end of the semester if this aligns with the graded submitted course work and the grading structure for the course. It is still the case that students who are reported as never attended during the first two weeks of class (during the Attendance Verification process) will be removed from the official class roll with no record of the course on the transcript.

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