November 15, 2001-Vol33n11: Lack of quorum delays absense policy again

Lack of quorum delays absense policy again
Faculty Senate considers proposal describing responsibilities of faculty and students

By DONNA LONGENECKER
Reporter Assistant Editor

Although approval of a proposed class absence policy was prevented by the absence of a quorum, the Faculty Senate at its Nov. 6 meeting, agreed, with some minor tweaking and discussion over semantics, to the spirit or essence expressed in the policy.

Extensively revised from what had been earlier referred to as an "overly prescriptive" and "overly complex" document, the current one-page proposal concisely describes the responsibilities of both instructors and students in instances where justifiable absences occur. Barring any future amendments, passage is expected at the senate's meeting on Dec. 11.

While the burden of proof still remains on students to provide documented, "justifiable" excuses for missing required coursework, one possible aim of the policy is to prevent faculty from rescheduling exam days to times not specified in the syllabus, such as weekends—or creating a burden so onerous that attempts by students to fulfill missed course requirements are met with insurmountable roadblocks.

The senate's Grading Committee noted in a one-page statement that "faculty are on occasion absent from class for good reason (including personal emergencies), unable to arrange a substitute, not penalized, and yet request or require additional effort from their students to compensate for the lost instructional activity. Students deserve parallel consideration."

In addition, however, the grading committee noted that the policy "is not a license to neglect course activities," and "does not excuse students who miss class because they forgot, sleep through exams because they studied all night, or do not get to laboratories because they were mesmerized by the weather channel. Unjustified absences merit neither remedy nor defense; none is here provided."

There is enough latitude in the provisions of the proposed policy to allow faculty the freedom to determine what constitutes adequate make-up of required coursework, members of the Grading Committee told senators.

"Great care was taken in constructing this statement," said Judith Adams-Volpe, director of university and external relations for the University Libraries, "so that it would give instructors the ability to determine themselves what the alternative might be; this policy does not attempt to tell any instructor what the alternative should be and it definitely does not say that an alternative has to be the same thing as something that was missed—just that a reasonable alternative shall be provided by an instructor." And, she emphasized, "it's only for justifiable absences."

Adams-Volpe also said she investigated the extent of the problems at the university posed by the lack of an absence policy—surveying the university ombudsmen, dean of students, office of the vice provost of academic affairs and the affirmative action office. The predominance of the cases cited by those offices, she said, deal with faculty mbmers who change their classes to Saturday or Sunday, leaving students with no recourse for an alternative make-up of required coursework.

In other business, the senate's Bylaws Committee presented for a first reading a resolution that would rework the composition of the senate, how each senator is chosen and the allocation of senators across the various schools. The proposed amendment to the senate's bylaws, which will be voted on at the Dec. 11 meeting, would limit the number of voting faculty members any one school can have to 25 percent of the total senatorial seats if the enrollement of that school is less than 20 percent of the total number of full-time equivalent students at the university.

Judith Hopkins, technical services research and analysis officer for University Libraries' Central Technical Services and chair of the Bylaws Committee, said the proposed changes would prevent, for example, the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences from achieving a voting advantage because of its size—about 760 voting faculty members—while enrolling less than 20 percent of the undergraduate population. The senate deals primarily with matters related to undergraduates.