Sometimes accidents happen.
When a law school prepares a final exam and recognizes problems with the questions getting asked, everyone understands when the school has to announce a last minute postponement to get the exam right for everyone’s benefit.
The key to this is “last minute” as opposed to “21 minutes AFTER the last minute.” Unfortunately, NYU Law had the latter issue.
The school had an Evidence exam for two sections scheduled for 2:30-5:30. Students started on time and, as is customary in the age of computer exams, dutifully adhered to the school’s “MANY MANY emails from the administration warning that we can’t check email during the exam.”
Alas, there were some problems with the exam and NYU postponed it until 3-6 in order to square this away.
We are aware there is an issue with the exam questions for your exam, which was scheduled to begin today at 2:30 p.m. The exam question issue is being resolved and the exam will be today from 3:00 p.m – 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
The update to the exam start time has been adjusted for students with postponements and accomodations [sic] as well.
You will be able to find this update in the announcements box on the Exams website. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
A well-crafted explanation of the problem and an eminently reasonable accommodation. One small problem is that this message came through via email… at 2:51 p.m.
Aw, swing and a miss!
Per a student account:
… joke’s on us because apparently there were issues with questions on the exam. and the administration notified us by email. 21 MINUTES AFTER THE EXAM BEGAN.
no one who wasn’t cheating saw this until after the exam ended.
Is that last sentence hearsay? That might be a good question for the revised exam!
As I said, accidents happen, but that’s all the more reason to have a thought out contingency plan that doesn’t rely on a mode of communication that students are prohibited from using at the precise moment they need it.
Or maybe this is a totally meta Evidence experiment? Full credit to students who correctly followed all the e-document protocols? Probably not.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
