- (Monday) Ashley von Moneyburg crying because she can't make her second scheduled makeup exam due to stomach flu.
- (Wednesday) Joe Goodguy wanting to take the midterm early so that he can go to his girlfriend's biopsy.
- (Thursday) Ashley von Moneyburg to tell me she missed her third scheduled makeup exam (on Tuesday) through no fault of her own.
- (Friday) Mr. Fratguy to let me know he has a serious undisclosed medical problem which will cause him to miss today's midterm but he will see me on Monday.
- (Friday) Ashley von Moneyburg begs me to return a call to $$$-$$$-$$$$.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Back in the saddle again.
My voice mail blinked furiously at me upon my return to the office this morning. I retrieved 5 messages, all left before last Friday's midterm:
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10 comments:
Poor you!
Does voicemail ever break? (I know tutors' email boxes get full - can you do the same with the voicemail?).
Sometimes feels a little like it's between a rock and a hard place...on both sides. I got serious lectures a few weeks ago about not coming into uni when I don't feel well (only trouble is that's most days, and that was the first time I'd been seriously ill to the point of inconveniencing others).
Do you find that students do cut you some slack when you've been ill/busy with non-teaching activities...as we're always made very aware of this sort of thing, so I couldn't work out whether you were joking with your last paragraph.
A student (UK)
Nearly forgot - I'm confused. Why ring on Monday to say that you've got stomach flu so you can't take an exam the day after?
How do you figure out what is true and what is B.S., or do you just shoot them all? When I was in college the policy was to shoot them all, no excuse was acceptable.
I felt that policy was unreasonable, especially in the case of one of my class mates. She collapsed from exhaustion in our design theory class. Her project was completed and needed to carried across the hall the prof's office. He failed her because she did not carry it across the hall before she collapsed. It was the last bit of required course work to graduate. He failed her and she did not graduate.
Today it seems any excuse will do, no matter how lame or sorry it is. The policy of accepting excuse is just as unreasonable and is even more destructive than the policy of no excuses allowed.
Maybe we should do as the Romans did with their policy of decimation. To gain control of a newly conquered province that was being unruly, they would kill every 10'th male in the area. Maybe you should arbitrarily refuse every other or every third excuse.
I liked Faded's idea.
Seriously, though, I'm hearing the same kind of junk from my students, one week after the term's over. Last summer, my own version of Joe Goodguy had to reschedule his portfolio due date because his mother's cancer had spread to her liver, and she was due for immediate surgery in Atlanta.
My version of Ashley von Moneyburg? She couldn't reschedule her family vacation to Greece and wanted to know whether it would be all right if she missed a week of class.
I have a colleague who announces to students that if they have to miss the exam for any reason (legitimate or otherwise), the makeup will be more difficult. This way, he figures, they don't have to lie to him.
He's noticed a remarkable decline in the number of dying grandparents and exam-time bouts with the flu.
Whilst it must be difficult to distinguish the truth from the lies, it can be very difficult (as a student) to approach a random lecturer to explain your situation.
Personally, I have a lot of problems: lack of adapted study facilities, grandparent who is slowly dying, need to pace myself (have been told by medics that I shouldn't be in uni full time), can't sleep due to unsuitable accommodation (uni), deal with the fact that my meds make me ill, very restricted library access (disability discrimination), difficulty reading/typing/sitting and am imminently facing social services deciding to institutionalise me with people four times my age again etc. etc. etc.
There's no way that I would want to share all of that with every lecturer...but to look at me (apart from the fact I'm tied to a wheelchair, and occasionally look bruised), you wouldn't be able to tell all that.
So how exactly do you deal with all that? (we don't get 'make ups' or extra credit in the UK - you have to sit the exam with those resitting at a later date).
Or is that all too much information and irrelevant?
If a student informs me about any disability -- wheelchair, walker, blindness, whatever -- and provides me with documentation from the Office of Disabled Student Services, then I'm all for helping out. But it's the student's responsibility to inform each and every prof of the situation. If the student doesn't provide that documentation, then it's not the prof's problem. Sorry.
Really, though, time and again, it's not those people who are BS-ing the prof. It's the people with the false sense of entitlement -- Ashley von Moneyburg, Mr. White Frat-Hat, and many non-traditional students who feel that because they have children, I'll let them take their rugrats away for spring break and allow them to miss class.
Anonymous,
At most US colleges and universities, there's an office for students with disabilities (the name may vary slightly). The student documents a disability or medical problem with this office, and the office works with the student to figure out what accomodations are appropriate. Then the student communicates with the profs using the office's documentation, and the prof is required to make reasonable accomodations. The prof has some discretion, but I think most are minimally reasonable.
And it's illegal for me (as a prof) to make any accomodations for disability without documentation through this office.
Thanks bardiac - that's interesting. I am definitely beginning to understand more about the US system. I couldn't understand why you were all calling yourselves professors or what tenure was until I read about it, as most of my lecturers are just as concerned about their research/performance/book chapters (and either alcohol or chocolate).
As far as our system goes, the disability office can make suggestions to the school/faculty about how the exam should be taken, but then if you're in a clinical school the exam still has to meet fitness to practice criteria (seems to be a problem for the nursing students and medics - luckily my school is more open minded).
As far as extensions etc. go, that's up to the academics (we have to get permission from our personal tutor, and get the form signed by thst tutor, the module lead and our programme lead).
I think it's interesting how the laws have grown up differently - as under the DDA (equivalent of the ADA), lecturers/academics have equal responsibility.
Judging by the dreaded wikipedia, lecturer=assistant/associate professor in the US as opposed to lecturer, as all the lecturers I know do research and teach, as well as the obligatory pastoral care side.
It also may be different in that if we can prove that we have unexpected social/pastoral issues (children don't count, as you're expected to think about that before you start), then it would definitely be your tutor that you went to.
In the years since I began undergrad until now (I'm in the second semester of my PhD), I've found there to be a weird trend in terms of the demands that students feel comfortable making. It's this weird sense of self-entitlement... which is even worse via email (at least these folks had the nerve to actually call you).
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