What the policy guarantees
A student who gives timely notice is entitled to a reasonable alternative — a make-up exam, a shifted deadline, an excused absence from a required session — for an observance their tradition treats as obligatory. The accommodation cannot carry a penalty, and an instructor may ask for the alternative to be completed before the original date rather than after.
Making it work
The friction is almost always about notice. A calendar of commonly observed dates is circulated to faculty each term, but the obligation is on the student to name their specific conflicts in the first two weeks, in writing, so there is a record. A dispute goes to the chair and then to Academic Affairs, which has consistently sided with the student when notice was timely.
In and around Porter Falls
Curriculum decisions at Porter run through the departments that meet in Founders Hall and the Applied Arts Building, then to Faculty Senate, then to the Provost in Millwright Hall. The pace is deliberately slow and the review calendar is published.
The practical details
Notice: In writing to the instructor, early in the term. Covers: Exams, quizzes, mandatory sessions and hard assignment deadlines. If denied: Appeal to the department chair, then the Provost's office. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.
If you have a question
The office behind this is Office of the Provost (Millwright Hall, Room 300). Call (715) 555–0130 or email provost@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.