West Bank One Stop office under renovations through January 12

The West Bank One Stop Student Services office will be closed through January 12 for renovations and reopen on January 16. The other One Stop locations will be open as usual. See One Stop Student Services hours.

Graduation rates

Graduation rates are in and we are seeing increases in percentages of graduation rates in all three cohorts (graduating in 4, 5, and 6 years). For the first time ever, our 6-year graduation rate is above 80%. The 4-year graduation rate increased to 68.4% (up from 65.2% last year). The next goal set by the Board of Regents is to reach 82% graduation rate for the 6-year cohort in 2021 (students admitted in fall 2015).

Data center maintenance—services affected

From 6:00 a.m., Saturday, January 6, until noon on Sunday, January 7, 2018, certain systems will be unavailable for planned, annual maintenance. The Office of Information Technology (OIT) has provided a full list of affected services. Note that PeopleSoft and MyU are included.

You can also check the IT Service Status that Saturday and Sunday morning for live updates. As work is completed, outages will be removed.

Reminder: fall grades due by December 28

The final grades for fall are due December 28 at 11:59 p.m. Please encourage instructors to submit grades as early as possible. For support regarding grades, contact ASR Training and Support at srhelp@umn.edu or 612-625-2803. Resources are also available on the ASR website.

First Campus Solutions 9.2 Upgrade Phase II project completed

As of December 17, the first of the 16 initiatives in the second phase of the Campus Solutions 9.2 has been completed: Direct Deposit Set-up Improvements. View the latest project dashboard for more details on this initiative as well as the other 15 initiatives still in progress.

Updates in Parchment, transcript vendor

The University’s vendor for ordering transcripts online, Parchment, got a few updates on December 5. There are two main changes to note:

1. When making an order, students can now search for and select an institution’s address in the system. This will help reduce typos and shipping errors. Manual entry is still available for addresses not included.
2. Students may order duplicate diplomas through Parchment now. (Previously this was done only via PDF form.) Ordering a duplicate diploma through Parchment is now preferred, but the PDF form will continue to be available. The cost, delivery options, and eligibility for a duplicate diploma remain the same. More information on duplicate diplomas can be found on the One Stop website.

Policy update: Undergraduate Degrees with Distinction & Degrees with Honors

The President's Policy Committee (PPC) reviewed and approved the change to the Undergraduate Degrees with Distinction & Degrees with Honors policy. The change will allow honors program students to receive latin honors if they are within .100 of the GPA requirement and have an exceptional thesis. The policy will be available on the policy website for review and comment prior to implementing the change for the 2018-19 academic year.

FERPA Q&A

Q: Can I email students with their final exam or paper grade?

A: Yes, provided you are sending to the individual student’s umn.edu email account and no other students are copied on the message. If you are using Moodle or Canvas, encourage students to look up grade information securely using those systems. Students can obtain their overall course grade information in MyU once it has been posted. For additional information on the safe handling of grade information, visit the ASR website.