BOG vows to fight proposed change in WVU excuse policies
Fellow WVU students, consider the following scenario: Morgantown gets a foot of snow one night, and you physically cannot make it to class safely.
The next day you have class, you approach your
professor and inform him of your situation. "I’m sorry," your
professor says, "I mad it in. You should have been able to make it in
as well."
Or maybe you have a death in the family. The day you come back, your professor says to you, "Sorry, I’ve heard that one twice this week already. Bring me a copy of the obituary."
That’s not fair, you say? The Faculty Senate of WVU is trying to make this seemingly unfair situation a very real possibility. Part 2 of the proposed Student Attendance Policy reads as follows: "Because documentation of illness is frequently not verifiable, neither the Office of Student Life, nor the University Health Service (UHS), nor any medical provider can excuse students for not attending class."
If this proposal passes, there will no longer be any means for a student to acquire any sort of official excuse from the University. This service, currently provided by the wonderful folks in E. Moore Hall, will end.
If you cannot make it to class due to travel concerns, health conditions, or evaen a death in the family, there will be no one to contact, no one to inform. Your professor does not have to accept an excuse from UHS, any other medical service, the weather channel, or even the Pope. Your professor will have ultimate authority in deciding if you will be excused.
The goal of this proposal is to increase class attendance. Yet, the proposal is unfair to those who have legitimate reasons to miss class. The Faculty Senate uses the fact that these sorts of excuses are unverifiable as a basis for the proposal. Well, is this the students’ fault? West Virginia University graciously provides an affordable Heal Service for students, and then essentially says the Health Service isn’t good enough to provide an excuse. If you want to solve the problem, make the excuses verifiable, don’t eliminate them.
Life happens. And if the Faculty Senate has its way, we’ll all just have to hope our professors understand. Even today, there are some classes where the professor states there are no excused absences. Do these conditions even seem remotely fair?
Part 4 of the proposed Attendance Policy says the following: "Students taking courses with regularly scheduled examinations cannot use that fact as basis for missing a regularly scheduled class that meets at the same time as the examination." So any of you out there with regular evening exams that occur during another class, you have to miss your exam, and make other arrangements. Sorry, all you Chemistry and Math people.
The Faculty Senate is trying to force habitual class-cutters to attend more classes. They are trying to do this, however, at the expense of all other students. It will now be much more difficult to be excused from class. If this passes, professors have the option not to accept any excuses.
Let’s not forget one more significant fact. Yet again, students were excluded from the formulation of another administrative policy. How quickly we forget that students have a way of protesting unpopular decisions. The last few football games of this season were characterized by very low student attendance. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself.
WVU is supposed to be a student-centered university. This proposal certainly does not fit my description of an institution where students are our #1 priority.
Rest assured, fellow students, that as a member of your Board of Governors, I will not let this issue go unchallenged. The Faculty Senate is due to vote on the attendance proposal at their next meeting. To ensure that the Faculty Senate is very aware of our displeasure at their activities, please come to the next Board of Governors meeting to voice your support and concerns. The meeting will be at 8:30 PM on Wednesday, the 20th, in the Rhododendron room of the Moutainlair.
Don’t worry&endash;if you have travel concerns, health conditions, or a death in family, we’ll excuse you.