OK -- apologies in advance if I have completely misunderstood what has
been said by several people.

Sorry folks but I am incredulous. If you have a student with a medical
certificate stating the student is incapacitated at that time, and the
final is worth eg 50 percent of the grade, you won't give them a
deferred? You give them zero and they fail the course? Am I missing
something here? You mean some poor sap who has the misfortune of
succumbing to an illness on the critical date or is run over by a bus
has their tale of woe compounded by a faculty member who says 'Kid, suck
it up. Look at the outline. It says no deferred.'   I hope I am
interpreting this wrong but this sure isn't the way I would like to be
treated in life -- seems far too harsh and as a fee paying parent, if a
faculty member did that to my kid and we effectively throw away a course
and likely (in my program anyway) made them lose a year of schooling, I
would be furious.

I want my students to sit their exam when they are not impaired by
illness. I want them to be in a position where they can do the best they
can -- and if that is they perform badly because they didn't study then
so be it. But I don't want them to do badly because they were sick. We
are the ones that say every point of a grade point average is critical
etc etc. Seems to me we have some responsibility to be fair.

And in case you think my policy (actually, my University policy) makes
work -- to repeat, if I large class I can expect perhaps one or at most
two deferred exams. Many years I have none. I don't feel I am being
exploited and if a dubious (dubious as in med. certificate -- tho' I
won't challenge a legit doctor) one slips thru' so be it. As I said
before, those kinds of students invariably do poorly likely because they
are too busy making excuses and not busy enough studying.

Again -- my apologies if I have misunderstood what is being done.

Sally



Ginger, Laura wrote:

>This is an easy one for me--I do not let students make up exams ever, for any reason.  This policy is in my syllabus and I discuss it the first day of class.  But even my colleagues who permit make up exams for some reasons do not permit make up exams of the final.  More to your point, no one I know would let a student make up a final which the student missed merely because of "writing it down wrong," oversleeping, or other types of student irresponsibility.  Just say no!
>Laura Ginger
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:   Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of Susan Rogers
>Sent:   Thu 5/12/2005 9:43 AM
>To:     [log in to unmask]
>Cc:
>Subject:        students missing finals
>
>I seem to have an epidemic this year of students missing the final, and
>wanting to make it up.  In all but one case, the only excuse is: I wrote
>it down wrong.
>
>This means they didn't read the syllabus very carefully, missed several
>in-class announcements, didn't double check the official schedule etc.
>
>I'm just wondering what others do in this situation.  One of my colleagues
>said she refused to give the student a make-up, but that student was
>flunking the class anyway.
>
>I have to say, I'm getting a bit fed-up with their level of irresponsibility!
>
>
>