Attending to Attendence
Saturday, October 9th, 2010
Imagine you’re lying in bed, surrounded by piles of discarded tissues. You have a horrible cold. You’re not sickly enough to head to the doctor, but you are ill enough to cancel any plans you had for the day. Barely able to open your eyes, you huddle under the covers and decide to spare yourself and your classmates the misery of your illness.
Wrong.
Although this is not the official policy of Lang, for classes in the literary studies and education departments, each unexcused absence leads to a half-letter grade bump.
In these classes, as well as in Lang’s general attendance policy, you’re only excused if an absence is covered by a doctor’s note, if you have a letter from the office of disability, or if you have an emergency. That’s it.
You will be penalized for any absence that doesn’t fall into one of those categories. In literary studies and education classes, each unexcused absence will damage your grade.
However, according to the Lang administrative office, the official attendance policy for all Lang classes is still the exact same as last year’s: a total of four absences mandates the reduction of letter grade, excluding those due to extenuating circumstances. There is no mention of a reduction of a half-letter grade for each unexcused absence.
As someone who attends class unless I’m truly incapacitated, I rarely pay attention to the attendance policy on my syllabus. Since a large part of most classes is discussion, attendance is important. But what if, for some random reason, I’m unable to attend class one day? What if the only available flight home for Thanksgiving lands on the last day of class before the holiday?
A lot of the time, we’d rather lie about our health to make holiday trips, even though it’s hard to get a doctor’s note when we aren’t ill. Wouldn’t it be better if we could just tell the truth?
The aforementioned don’t fall under the category of extenuating circumstances that the catalog outlines, but they are legitimate reasons a person may miss class.
Rather than prescribing to such a strict rule, unexcused absences should be determined on a case-by-case basis. If a student is not participating and generally doesn’t engage in discussion, that’s one thing. Participation is integral for a seminar-based class. Since you must be present to participate, it’s logical to assume that your participation grade would be effected due to lack of attendance.
If a student who fulfills all other requirements, including exceeding expectations for participation, he or she should not be penalized in the same way. Chances are, a good student already feels guilty for missing the class.
It seems more reasonable for professors to make decisions based on the situation at hand. Having such a definitive rule categorizes a student who misses a class because of a wedding as being the same as one who skips out because of laziness.
If professors do notice a distinction, why have the rule at all? Decide the participation grade based on in-class discussions and any unexcused absences, on the grounds that an the absence may be unavoidable or unforeseen. I’m sure it’s not any professor’s intention to potentially hurt a student’s academic career because he or she had one “unexcused” absence.
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