What to do when instructors ignore email/contact attempts?

[Satori]

I'm on my 3rd semester with the same online teacher (basic math, pre-alg and now algebra) and this semester I am about to rip my hair out. We have to go to campus once a month for testing. I missed the first month due to car issues and emailed the teacher asking about a make up, he never replied back. Email is his preferred method of communication and it goes to his blackberry which he's addicted to.

I have the 2nd test tonight and you guessed it, my car decided yesterday its time to start over heating within 5 minutes again (Just found out I blew a head gasket). I emailed him right away asking if I could come in and take the test a couple hours early with his TA proctoring since I knew she would be in.

You guessed it, still no reply.

So I'm going to have to take the bus down there way before the test and stake out his office and ask to start the test right then because I have to be back on the last bus back home at 6pm (50 miles and 2 hour trip) and the test doesn't start until 5:30 and will take an hour to complete. To add to the fun I'm gonna totally fail this test but some points are better than none and when it comes to passing or not a single point can make all the difference. I was finally able to arrange on campus tutoring 3 days a week so I'll pass the remaining tests and have a chance at passing but is there anything I can do about a teacher who is not responding to email? Especially over something that’s worth 20% of my grade at each test?

[Chamomile Girl]

Yes! You need to go up the chain of command. Contact the department chair or if there isn't one the dean. Be very detailed about your concerns.

[Carita]

is thre another way to contact him? like during class or something? Its possible that the black hole of e-mail is sending yours to the junk box, so alert him if he's not responding. also just because he has a blackberry doesn't mean that he can respon. i would go in early anyway and ask the TA directly if you can sit for the exam. maybe she can contact the professor too.

[Satori]

Originally Posted by Carita

is thre another way to contact him? like during class or something? Its possible that the black hole of e-mail is sending yours to the junk box, so alert him if he's not responding. also just because he has a blackberry doesn't mean that he can respon. i would go in early anyway and ask the TA directly if you can sit for the exam. maybe she can contact the professor too.

Its an online class so I only see him once a month. He responds on his blackberry and has many times in the past and told us so at orientation as well. I do plan to go in, leaving in about 15 minutes to catch the bus.

[GoestoShow]

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Edited by GoestoShow - 12/17/10 at 9:02am

[Satori]

Thank you everyone, I had a whole 20 minutes to work on the test before I had to leave to catch the last bus home and explained why I was leaving early and reminded him that I did email and call him about taking the test earlier in the day. He said he didn't get either email I sent and said I can come back next time I'm on campus to finish the test

[kcparker]

Are you sending from a campus-provided email address, or from a yahoo account? Sometimes the spam filters on academic email accounts will filter out non-academic email addresses more often than if you send it from your [e-mail] instead of [e-mail]. That might be one spot to troubleshoot this too.