When Should An Instructor/Advisor Submit an APR?
Course instructors and academic advisors are expected to submit academic performance reports (APRs) to the Learning Commons when they have concerns about a student in one of their courses, or about one of their advisees. The Learning Commons partners with the student’s advisor(s) to respond appropriately. Please send an APR if you observe any of the following behaviors:
- Two or more class absences within the space of two or three weeks.
- Failure to attend class for ill-defined reasons (e.g., “I didn’t feel well so stayed in bed”), suggesting that a student is having other difficulties.
- Poor performance (C- or below) on tests, essays, assignments, or in class activities.
- Failure to submit assignments.
- Sudden negative changes in the quality of a student’s work.
- Disengagement from the course or other behaviors, suggesting that the student may be in need of assistance.
Please note that you can submit more than one APR for the same student. If you have already submitted an APR for a student in your course and then have further reason for concern (for example, failure of a second major examination or continued class absences), please submit a second APR, or a third, or a fourth! The information in APRs is an important tool in our efforts to retain students and support student success at Allegheny.
Please send an APR by September 30 in the Fall semester for any student who is consistently completing less than C level work.
It is important for first-year students in particular that they receive feedback about their academic performance within the first four to six weeks of their first semester, and APRs are an appropriate means to share your feedback with students and the Learning Commons should concerns arise. You may elect to take a “wait and see” approach early in the semester so as not to unnecessarily alarm the student with an APR, and in those cases an APR with the “FYI only” option checked, or an e-mail or phone call to the Learning Commons to discuss the situation may be helpful.
Another important deadline is the deadline for a student to request a Student-Initiated Withdrawal (“X”) from a course. Please speak directly with students who are unlikely to pass your course prior to this deadline and then follow up with an APR. Please allow enough time for the student to have additional conversations with their advisor(s) and/or Learning Commons counselor.
How Do You Submit an APR?
To submit an APR for a student in one of your classes:
- Log into WebAdvisor
- Select “Class Roster”
- Select the course for which the student is registered
- Find the student in the roster listing and click the “Submit APR” link in the far-left column
- Fill out the form and click SUBMIT
To submit an APR for an advisee:
- Log into WebAdvisor
- Select “My Advisees: Acad Records”
- Select the current semester from the drop-down menu and click SUBMIT
- Locate the student in your advisee list and select “Submit Advisor APR” from the drop-down menu for the student
- Fill out the form and click SUBMIT
What Happens When You Send an APR?
Assuming you have checked the appropriate option, the student receives a generic e-mail from the Learning Commons letting them know that you have expressed concern about their performance in your course (or as their academic advisor) by submitting an APR.
- If you do not check the box next to “Send Email to Student Concerning Need for Academic Support ,” then the student WILL NOT receive any notification. This is often not the appropriate choice, but that depends on the circumstances. A student who has not been notified does not necessarily know there is any cause for concern.
- If you do check the box next to “Send Email to Student Concerning Need for Academic Support,” then the student will be sent an e-mail. The student does not receive any comments or additional feedback that you may have entered on the form; that information goes to the Learning Commons and other administrators/staff assigned to the student (e.g. co-advisors and/or athletic coaches). i.e., all the student knows is that you have concerns; you will need to make sure to express those concerns to the student separately, via e-mail or an inperson meeting.
- If you check the box “FYI only,” no e-mail will be sent to the student even if you have checked the “Send Email to Student Concerning Need for Academic Support” box.
- If you check the box “Referral to Gateway and/or Dean of Students,” no e-mail will be sent to the student even if you have checked the “Send Email to Student Concerning Need for Academic Support” box. Please use the comment box to specify what sort of referral you would like to make and the Learning Commons staff will pass the message along to the appropriate office or individual.
This is the e-mail the student will receive from a course APR: “Prof. XXX, your instructor in XXX, believes you may need additional support to be successful in this class. We encourage you to meet with your instructor as soon as possible to talk about this. Your advisor or a member of the Learning Commons will also reach out to talk about other resources and options you have.”
This is the e-mail the student will receive from an advisor APR: “Your advisor believes you may benefit from additional support to be more successful at Allegheny. We encourage you to meet with your advisor as soon as possible to talk about other resources and options available to you. A member of the Learning Commons may also follow up with you, but you don’t need to wait for us to email or call. Our email is learningcommons@allegheny.edu and our phone number is 814-332-2898. We’re here to help. -The Maytum Learning Commons.”
As students receive APRs, they are assigned to a staff member in the Learning Commons who then reaches out to the student to address the situation. Interventions vary for each student: the staff member may communicate with the student via e-mail, schedule a face-to-face meeting, or work directly with the instructor (and/or advisor) to address the situation by other means.
When submitting APRs, it is important to include specific information such as the student’s current estimated grade, the results of any graded exams or assignments, attendance habits, and any other relevant concerns. The Learning Commons and advisors will use this information to inform their conversations with the student and develop a plan for improvement. Please be sure to note whether you have discussed any issues with the student prior to submitting the APR. Submitting an APR with no comments is less useful than an APR submitted with comments.
APR notifications are sent to students as you hit “submit.” To the extent that is feasible, please be aware of timing as you send APRs. For example, if you send an APR at 9:00 pm on a Friday evening, there is nothing a student can do about it until the following Monday morning… . except worry.
The exception to this is that APR notifications to students are TURNED OFF COMPLETELY after the last day of classes, so that students are not sent APRs after the point at which it is too late for them to do anything about the concerns being expressed.
How Should Advisors Respond to APRs?
APRs are an indication that there is cause for concern about a student’s academic performance. Hopefully, the scale and nature of that concern will be conveyed by the APR comments. How an advisor responds depends on the nature of the circumstances, what the advisor knows about the student, and what the instructor suggests as a recourse. Having said that, there are several guidelines that we ask advisors to please observe.
- First-year students probably need more direct attention than upper-class students (please see below).
- Students who are on Academic Warning, Academic Probation, or Poor Academic Standing probably need more direct attention than students who are in Good Academic Standing with the College.
- Students who appear to not be communicating with their instructor(s) or the Learning Commons probably need more direct attention than those who are communicating, but in those cases, e-mail is unlikely to be effective.
- If a student is receiving multiple APRs, either in multiple classes, or in the same class, they probably need more direct attention than a student who receives a single APR.
- Please make sure to copy the student’s Learning Commons counselor on your e-mail messages, so that everyone is having the same conversation.
- If you see the student regularly, in class or in some other setting, a personal interaction is often more effective than an e-mail. However, those personal conversations still need to be briefly documented so that everyone is having the same conversation.
In every case, these are suggestions, not strict rules. Again, how an advisor responds depends on the nature of the circumstances, what the advisor knows about the student, and what the instructor suggests as a recourse.
APR Response for New Students
FS instructors/advisors are in a unique position to talk with first year and new transfer students when the student receives a first APR. To bring advisors more actively into the APR advising process and to provide a more personal response to this first APR, the following change in APR protocol (new for Fall 2017) is outlined below.
- In the Fall semester when first years and transfers receive their first APR the FS instructor/advisor should have the initial conversation with the student. This might include a discussion of what an APR is, what it means and appropriate steps a student could take (such as go talk with your instructor, go to drop-in tutoring).
- When the Learning Commons receives those first Fall APRs, the Director will assign a professional staff contact. This person will NOT reach out to the student or enter anything into Colleague unless the advisor requests follow up by the Learning Commons.
- If it seems that time management, motivation, reading, or possible learning issues are the issue, the advisor will e-mail the Director of the Learning Commons to request follow up.
- Documentation of the advisor’s conversation with the student will go into the student’s advising folder.
- Additional APRs for first years and transfers (even it is a first APR if in a different subject) will be addressed by the Learning Common staff member previously assigned to student. The staff member will e-mail student and copy the student’s advisor on the communication. Documentation of the interaction will be entered into Colleague.
- If a student receives their first APR in the Spring Semester, the Learning Commons staff member will e-mail the student and will copy the advisor on the communication.
All other APRs will be responded to by the assigned LC professional staff member who will always copy the advisor. We ask that advisors copy LC staff on e-mails if they reach out first.
There is one major EXCEPTION to the rule that an advisor responds to the first Fall APR for a first-year or transfer student. If the student fails to show up to the first meeting of the FS 101 class, the Monday before the semester begins, instructors should submit an APR and the Learning Commons will follow up.
APRs That Suggest a Student “X” a class
- When any student receives an APR recommending the student take a Student-Initiated Withdrawal (“X”) in the class, the advisor (rather than the Learning Commons) should follow up since the advisor will need to sign the “X” card and is responsible for monitoring a student’s academic progress toward graduation.
- Before approving a Student-Initiated Withdrawal, the advisor should consider the following:
- Is the student a senior?
- check the Degree Audit to see if the student needs this particular course or the credits to graduate
- Is the student on any type of academic warning or probation? Check the terms of their warning. Will dropping this course affect this?
- Will the X drop a student below 12 credits (full-time status)?
- athletic eligibility is based on full-time status
- financial aid is NOT recalculated mid-semester
- Please make sure you copy the appropriate Learning Commons counselor on your message to the student, so that everyone is in the loop.
End-of-Semester APRs
End-of-semester APRs can be vitally important. You should submit an APR for each student who earns the following grades in one of your courses: C-, D+, D, F, or NC.
You should also submit an APR for every grade of Incomplete (IN) and for every instance in which you granted a “Withdrawal for Extenuating Circumstances” (W). For grades of IN, you should report the grade to which the record will default if the student fails to complete the work. For grades of IN and W, you should briefly report the circumstances that lead you to award that grade.
For those students who are facing Academic Suspension or Dismissal, the APR record is included in the materials reviewed by the Academic Standards and Awards Committee. It is vitally important, therefore, that APRs for students be submitted NO LATER than one week after the final grading deadline for the semester.
APR notifications to students are TURNED OFF COMPLETELY after the last day of classes, so that students are not sent APRs after the point at which it is too late for them to do anything about the concerns being expressed.
Record Keeping and Student Privacy
If a student changes advisors for any reason, the new advisor will not have access to prior APRs. Please print out the APR and place it, with records of your follow-up conversations/e-mails, in the student’s advising file.
APRs are part of a student’s educational record and are subject to FERPA. The contents of APRs are confidential and should not be shared outside the circle of school officials with a legitimate educational interest to know the 99 information. Students do not receive a copy of the instructor’s comments and you should not share the verbatim comments with them. It is acceptable to paraphrase, but instructors may include notes for professional staff that are not for students. HOWEVER, please be aware that a student has the right to inspect their educational record so long as they follow published guidelines, so please write in the knowledge that a student COULD one day read what you write. Instructor comments and observations should be kept to academic and associated matters.
What APRs cannot do
The APR is a useful tool, but it has limitations. It sends one pre-set message to students, a message which conveys a sense of concern to the student about their performance in class. APRs that you intend to be positive will not initially seem so unless your comments are shared with the student. Direct e-mail or a conversation with the student would be preferable in those cases. APRs also go to Learning Commons personnel (and coaches where applicable) only. They do not go directly to the Dean of Students and Residence Life, the Counseling Center, the Registrar, Career Education, etc. Learning Commons staff reroute matters of concern as appropriate.
Level of Urgency
In the Summer of 2017, the APR form was substantially revised. You now have the option to indicate the level of urgency of the APR. If you have serious concerns about a student’s well-being, please check “High” as the level of urgency and contact the Learning Commons via email or phone with your concerns.
Professional staff working with the Learning Commons to help students receiving APRs:
Erin O’Day-Frye, Director of the Learning Commons, eoday@allegheny.edu
John Mangine, Director of Disability Services, jmangine@allegheny.edu
Carly Masiroff, Associate Director of the Learning Commons, cmasiroff@allegheny.edu
Jennifer Franz, Learning Specialist/TESOL instructor, jfranz@allegheny.edu
Lenee McCandless, Assistant Director of International Education, lmccandless@allegheny.edu
Jen McDonough, Life Coach and Academic Support Specialist, jmcdonough@allegheny.edu
Ian Binnington, Dean of Curriculum & Registrar, ibinning@allegheny.edu
The Learning Commons may have an intern or a faculty member assisting with APR responses.
Academic Performance Report Sample
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