College of Fine and Applied Arts

The instructional assistance program is designed for students interested in earning academic credit through supervised participation in the instructional process. Students with junior or senior standing are eligible to participate in this program.  An undergraduate student may include a maximum of 3 credit hours toward graduation requirements under the instructional assistance program.

Courses numbered less than 1000 (excluding applied music courses, major-principal, MUS 0001 - 0025) are taken for “institutional credit” only. These courses DO NOT count for graduation, but are computed in the student’s GPA (the hours count toward full-time student eligibility, but do not count as hours earned for graduation). Institutional credit courses will not be used in determining eligibility for honors.

Individual study is a special provision where a student makes a contractual agreement with an instructor to complete a course on a different time schedule or without attending class regularly.  Anyone wishing to pursue an individual study must be a candidate for a degree at Appalachian or working toward teacher certification.

Independent Study is a special course, not listed in the regular curriculum, in which the student designs a project and then pursues it under the guidance of a faculty member who serves as a consultant for the student during the course of the study. The faculty member who will direct the student’s work, the chairperson and the Dean’s Office must approve the Independent Study.  Anyone wishing to pursue an Independent Study must be a degree candidate at Appalachian or working toward teacher certification.

A course may be added after the published Drop / Add period only for extenuating circumstances and requires the written permission of the instructor,  department chairperson and associate dean.

Student must complete the Late Drop / Add Form identifying the reason for the late add and have all of the required signatures before submitting it to the Dean's Office for final approval. 

Students may freely drop and add courses during the first five days of the fall and spring terms without using any Career Drops. From the sixth day until the end of the ninth week of the fall and spring semesters, students may drop no more than four courses in their entire academic career at Appalachian. These are called Career Drops.

You may use career drops by dropping courses in your AppalNet account. No form is needed:

Yes, click on the Class History link in DegreeWorks at the top of the audit.

Incomplete grades are assigned only because of sickness or some other unavoidable cause, not because a student fails to complete assignments in the course. An “I” becomes an “F” or “U” if not removed within the time designated by the instructor, not to exceed one semester, except that all incompletes must be removed at the time of graduation. 

A student may repeat up to four courses and have Grade Forgiveness applied. Grade Forgiveness removes the initial grade AND the earned hours from the calculation of the grade point average (GPA). All courses will appear on the transcript. Grade Forgiveness will be automatically applied for the first four courses the student repeats.