Architecture and Design Students Can Have Assessment Extensions (As A Treat)

By Dan Moskovitz (he/him)

Architecture and design students at Te Herenga Waka have been misled by the university about their rights to academic extensions. 

According to the university’s official Assessment Handbook, students are entitled to request extensions under three circumstances: unexpected professional commitments, high academic workload (if all of your assignments are due at the same time) and special circumstances, such as bereavement and illness. 

But not all students are aware of this. Screenshots of course pages on Nuku—the university’s learning platform—obtained by Salient show several course pages saying only “special circumstances” were valid reasons for an extension. 

“The faculty is misleading students by saying the only thing which gets you extensions are these special circumstances,” said Ethan Rogacion, VUWSA’s Academic Vice President. “That’s telling students they have less rights than they do.” 

Helen Andreae, Associate Dean of the faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation told Salient the aforementioned Nuku pages were up by mistake. 

“Those documents are from 2022,” she told Salient. “It was written before the current policy was in place and it got rolled over in some classes year after year without staff looking back on it.” 

“We’re going to have someone check all of the extension pages on Nuku, and we’re shoulder tapping students to reapply for their extensions.” 

Rogacion stressed to Salient these extensions were necessary as architecture and design courses have burnout cultures, with there being an unspoken expectation of staying late at university. Andreae agreed. 

“We are aware how architecture degrees are notoriously high workload and it's something we are directly working on how to manage,” she said. “It's a challenge because we have external bodies of accreditation, which means we have to ensure our students learn a certain amount at a rigorous standard.” 

Still, she acknowledged the need for balance. “But we are having discussions on how we can reduce this. Because we can't put students in a position where they're choosing between university or their job. That's not OK.” 

Andreae encouraged any affected students to  get in touch with her or her colleagues directly.