Academic Amnesty Policy

  • Policy Number: KC‐ACA‐3101‐01
  • Date Issued: Prior to 2010
  • Date Revised: Spring 2019
  • Last Modified: Aug 28, 2023
  • Effective Date: Spring 2019
  • Approved By: Provost
  • Sponsor(s): Provost
  • Responsible Office(s): Registrar's Office

Policy Statement

The University of Missouri‐Kansas City has an amnesty policy to enable those students who did not perform adequately during their enrollment within the University of Missouri System (UM System) to be given a second chance to pursue their academic goals. The policy is as follows:

Students who are transferring or returning to the University of Missouri – Kansas City to pursue a degree after an extended absence from all UM System schools (University of Missouri – Kansas City, Missouri S&T, University of Missouri – Columbia, and University of Missouri – St. Louis) may request permission to remove one or more of their complete academic terms for future degree and GPA considerations.

A student may apply for amnesty if either of the following requirements are met:

  1. Has not been enrolled at UMKC or any other UM System School at any time during the past two years and has documented evidence of circumstances beyond their control that led to poor performance;
  2. Has not been enrolled at UMKC or any other UM System School for at least four years.

Students must apply for amnesty at the time of the application for readmission or before the end of the first semester of readmission, if already readmitted

Amnesty will be implemented as follows:

  • Students must meet the specified conditions of successfully (2.5 GPA‐UG/3.0 GPA‐GRAD) completing 12 hours (six hours for grad) within the first year of readmission before amnesty will be applied. Please note that academic units may require a higher GPA than the amnesty minimum.
  • Grades for ALL courses taken in the period of time for which amnesty is requested will be removed from the grade point average if the request is approved. The student may not choose specific courses within a term or period.
  • The original UM System grade will remain on the student’s UMKC transcript, and will be marked by an “X” preceding the grade. For plus/minus grades, the plus or minus will be dropped and the base grade will be used. For example, grades of A, B+, B, B‐…F would be changed to XA, XB, …XF. These hours and grades will remain on the transcript, but will not count toward cumulative hours nor GPA, nor can they be used to fulfill any degree requirements, regardless of the original grade.
  • UMKC Academic Amnesty actions will not alter or be recorded on the student’s academic record or impact GPA calculations of the originating UM System School since this is a campus‐based policy and varies by UM System School. However, UMKC’s Academic Amnesty policy may be applied to terms completed at any UM System school contributing to the UMKC calculation of system‐wide cumulative GPA.
  • A statement “Grades granted amnesty by faculty committee action” (or similar) will follow the last course on terms granted amnesty.
  • Students can receive amnesty at UMKC only one time (for one or multiple terms recorded by any UM System School) in their lifetime.

Reason for Policy

This policy was developed to support student academic success and to provide consistent, quality delivery of academic programs and services.

Who Should Read this Policy?

All faculty, academic advisors and Registrar’s Office personnel.

Instructions, Procedures and Related Information

Petition for Academic Amnesty Office of Registration and Records.

This policy revision (Spring 2019) supercedes the former policy as published in the Fall 2018 Catalog.

Contacts

UMKC Registrar’s Office

Registrar's website

Physical location:
115 Administrative Center
5115 Oak Street
Kansas City, MO 64110

Mailing address:
5100 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110‐2499

Phone: 816‐235‐1125

Fax: 816‐235‐5513

Email: registrar@umkc.edu

Exclusions

Professional programs in Nursing, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Medicine (including the BA‐MD program) and Law.

History and Updates

Revised Fall 2018 to include graduate students and implementation of two tier process of two years away with extenuating circumstances and four years away without extenuating circumstances.

Appendices

None

Forms and Links

Petition for Academic Amnesty form (PDF)