COLUMN: Double standard for attendance inexcudable
Why is it instructors think since they write the syllabus and stand in front of the class they have the right to deem what is an excusable number of absences from class and how those absences should be punished? These same instructors seem to feel quite at ease missing a day or two of class themselves, but at what price?
We’re probably all for rewarding students who make the effort to show up to every class period and participate in discussions. What easier way is there to ensure a decent grade? But to tell a student that missing five classes will lower their grade by a full letter is unfair, unconscionable and a nasty double standard that ought not be acceptable at an institution of higher learning.
How dare an instructor – who we’re paying, by the way – cancel class for their own personal reasons and a breath later turn around and say a student cannot miss class to attend to their own personal matters?
At some point, everyone misses a class and that’s fine. You’re not feeling well, you broke your foot, you’re having open-heart surgery or you’re sleeping. All good reasons to miss a class. And the expected repercussions are generally quite clear if you’re at all concerned about your grades or your learning curve here: miss the discussion, miss opportunities to ask questions, miss a quiz or an assignment, etc. But should we expect such harsh repercussions as the loss of a letter grade due to the omission of our names on the roll sheet when instructors experience no similar fines?
They should. We’re paying them to be in class. That’s their job. Imagine if that job was in something like retail. The clerk may come and go as he pleases but we, the customers, must show up like regular clockwork, advance notice of our absence or not, and put up with whatever the clerk hands us in return. We may be charged higher prices, we may receive less service or we may watch the clerk ignore every one of our requests. Would we recommend our friends go back or return ourselves? Eventually the store would close and the clerk would lose his job. Teachers who would dock us a grade because of absences should be docked something every time they cancel a class. Since we’re paying them, perhaps their paycheques should be docked. What do you think? A dollar or two per class? Per student?
Let’s be more scientific about this: A three-credit class costs a Utah resident undergrad $455.36, not including any applicable class fees. That class will, more often than not, meet three times a week for 15 weeks. That’s 45 class periods. Every class period then costs us, the students, $10.12 – an amount that more than doubles to $27.04 for nonresident undergrads.
How does it make you feel knowing you’ll be sucking up your Ramen Noodles for a week and your instructor just wasted either $10.12 or $27.04 of your money? What could we spend that money on? Some vegetables, maybe. Milk, eggs, bread. Good food, not Ramen. Your instructor probably isn’t eating Ramen.
Sure, most instructors are grossly underpaid. Should the money come out of their pockets? No. Not all of our tuition goes toward the instructor’s salary. Some of that money must go to administration costs, water costs and sewage costs, not to mention electricity, heat and more. It’s difficult to establish how much of that $10.12 or $27.04 goes directly to the professor. But it doesn’t matter whose pocket the cash flows from – the university, its president or the instructor – so long as there are repercussions for those who would impose them upon us.
It’s not a fair world, but this isn’t the real world. This is college, where anyone can make up his own rules.
E-mail comments about Canada Goose to slr4h@cc.usu.edu.