Education Graduate Student Guidelines

Academic Advisor
The advisor is responsible for putting together the academic program and providing assistance when needed. If a candidate has any life-challenges, concerns or problems with the program or instructors, the advisor should be the first person contacted. If the problem cannot be resolved at that level, the next step is to contact the Director of Graduate Studies. Any problems that cannot be resolved at that level will be referred to the Provost. By following the procedures for dealing with issues that are listed here, we hope to best respond to your concerns. This keeps everyone informed and helps reduce miscommunication and lack of coordination.

Academic Bulletin
The bulletin contains all the policies and procedures for the program. Please read over this document and be familiar with its contents. You are responsible for knowing the information it contains. The bulletin can be located on the Corban graduate webpage under Program Info.

Academic Calendar
An abbreviated calendar is posted in the Academic Bulletin. The complete calendar is on the graduate webpage. Please refer to this for information about registration, add-drop dates and other pertinent dates.

Admission
The Graduate Admissions counselor is responsible for helping candidates through the admissions process and registration for the first semester courses. At that point in time candidates will be assigned an academic advisor who will work with them through the completion of the program.

Converge
This is the Corban College online course system, and it is used to supplement most face-to-face (F2F) courses as well. Get into the system and explore as soon as you can, but you will not see any courses in your “My Courses” list until you are registered for the course. Go to: http://converge.corban.edu. User name is firstnamelastname@corban.edu (example: marissastevens@corban.edu) and password is the candidate’s social security number (until he/she changes it).

Course Schedules
Tentative Course Schedules for each semester will be posted on the Graduate Education Webpage at the beginning of the prior semester, and Final Course Schedules will be posted by the middle of the prior semester. For example, Tentative Spring Course Schedule will be posted at the beginning of Fall semester, and the final Spring schedule will be posted by the middle of Fall semester.

Dropping Courses
If you need to make a change to your schedule, you must notify from your advisor. The advisor is responsible for notifying the Registrar of dropped courses. See the Academic Bulletin for further policies on fees and drop dates.

Email Accounts
All candidates are expected to use their Corban email accounts. Doing so facilitates communication on the part of the program faculty and staff. Candidates are responsible for all information sent to their Corban account. All faculty and staff have been told to use this as their means of communication with all candidates.

To access your account, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to http://inside.corban.edu
  2. Under Resources click on WebMail
  3. Type in username: firstlastname (Ex: terrysmith)
  4. Type in password: Social Security Number

Online Courses
Instructors use Converge to structure the course. It is the instructor’s responsibility to contact candidates before the beginning of the semester. This is typically done through your Corban email account. The email will provide detailed directions for the course.

Online Library Research
Candidates will be expected to search for, select, download and read books and academic journal articles as a part of their graduate education at Corban. This process begins on the Corban website. Select the Library homepage, and follow these basic steps:

Looking for Books:
Select Library Catalogs, Corban Online Catalog (OPALL), and Library Catalog again. Type in the descriptors for your search, and remember to select Corban College in one of the menus.

Looking for Academic Articles:
Select Databases on the Library homepage, ProQuest Educational Journals. Use advanced search to enter a variety of search parameters for the articles you wish to find. Some of them will be full-text online, but if the ones you need are not available full-text, the library staff will order them for you. You may also select “Ebsco Host, Education Databases” at the bottom of the first database list.

These are only the basic steps. Explore the library website and become familiar with the process. Candidates are responsible for developing their own skills in accessing online library resources, but the library staff and individual faculty members are very helpful - so feel free to contact them with any questions along the way.

Purchasing Books
To receive a list of texts for your classes, please contact the college bookstore. We strongly encourage all candidates to purchase their books through the bookstore. The college works hard at keeping textbook prices in line with online costs.

Some candidates choose to purchase their books online. We discourage this practice because candidates often do not receive the books by the start of the class. As a college, we have made a commitment to have all texts in the bookstore at least a week before the semester begins. In the rare occurrence that a book is not available, the bookstore will notify the instructor so that changes can be made to the syllabus. If candidates choose to purchase their books online, they are responsible for having them by the beginning of the class. Please note that if you decide to purchase books online, they may take up to two weeks to ship, unless they are sent via first class or expedited mail. Most used bookstores send their books via media mail. This can take up to two to four weeks.

Online students can contact the bookstore and their books will be sent to them.

Registration
Candidates are responsible for registering for courses each semester. This can be done by contacting the Registrar through email (rwright@corban.edu) or phone (503 375-7014). Candidates can also register in person at the Registrar’s office in Schimmel Hall. When registering, candidates must provide their name, social security number, course numbers and course title for each course. If candidates have worked out a program plan with their advisor identifying when they will take certain classes, please meet with him or her before deciding to change that plan.