UCF: Unforgiving, Callous Foundation?

Okay, the F=Foundation is a stretch. But the only other F word I could think of that is appropriate to the situation is....let's put it this way- not one you'd find on cable TV.

Photo credit: Caitlin Bush, Central Florida Future

I read a story by Renita Frett in the Central Florida Future today that really bothered me. A UCF student by the name of Nick Szepelak has been put on academic probation as a result of....wait for it...... attending his mother's funeral. His mother passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease in the spring semester. While he managed to finish his spring courses, the funeral was planned for July 1st, and he was enrolled in two classes for the Summer C term. He had already passed the withdrawal date for Summer C, and when he let his professors know he was leaving for a week to be with his family, they "instructed him to try and keep up through e-mail." Understandably, it was difficult for him to do so during that time and he fell behind. He applied for late withdrawal, but since he wouldn't receive the decision until after the term was over, he tried to finish the courses and take his final.

His request for late withdrawal was denied, his appeal was denied because there was "no new evidence," and now he is facing academic probation because he had to use his grade forgiveness for the two courses he was not allowed to drop.

To quote from the article: "“No one has talked to me on a personal level about it. It all has been ‘Fill out this form,’” Szepelak said."

It is this kind of lack of compassion or understanding for personal situations that give state universities like UCF the bad reputation of being massive, faceless, and often ineffective bureaucracies. A coordinator for academic support claimed that he never came to ask them for advice- but during the time that this was happening, he was dealing with his mother's death and being shuffled around and told to fill out form after form. I don't exactly fault him for not running all over the place to ask for more advice when the advice he was already receiving from the university kept leading to dead ends.

The approach that the university has taken to this case is ridiculous and completely insensitive. Things don't even work like this in most professional situations: employees, in most (if not all) cases are given time off in the case of the death of a close family member.

Most disturbing to me is the idea that UCF did not want to let him drop the courses possibly because they did not want to refund him the money for those courses, even though the student said that a refund was not necessary.

This is a gross lack of compassion and empathy on the part of UCF's Admission and Standards committee, and I'm just glad to see that the Central Florida Future is using its front page to actually bring light to a legitimate injustice.

Here is a link to the article:

Student went to funeral, put on academic probation

...and a link to a well-written opinion piece on the subject:

Our Stance: Grief warrants grade forgiveness