Attendance
Policy
Michael Taber
St. Mary’s College of
Maryland
Executive summary:
Don’t exceed the two-week mark!
You have sensibly
chosen a small college. If you had wanted to be facelessly anonymous, you could
have chosen to enroll at Enormous U. Directly relating to each other about
matters of (I’m sure you’ll come to agree) great importance to us as
individuals and as members of communities is the best of college experiences.
This course is
structured as a seminar. That means we use real-time, in-person discussions to
explore, understand, and even disagree about the text assigned. Even though I
have guideposts for the discussions, the presence or absence of individuals in
a class on a given day will shape how that day’s conversation unfolds and what
new understandings we develop as a class. Missing class isn’t just about
missing the content. In this course, it’s not just about “what we go over,” but
“HOW” we go over it that’s critical for your learning. That’s why showing up
matters.
For at least this
reason, regular attendance at, and participation in, the class are central to
this course. (Besides, it’s well-nigh impossible to do
well in this course without regular attendance, and difficult without regular
participation.)
Except for absences due
to participating in approved college activities (like athletics or traveling to
a conference), everyone is allowed two weeks’ worth of absences (excused or
unexcused) per semester without automatically failing the course. (That is, six
absences for a MWF class, and four for a TuTh class.)
Having one additional absence—excused or unexcused—will result in failing the course, despite the
quality of the rest of the student’s work. (Arriving to class
more than 15 minutes late or departing from class more than 15 minutes early
counts as an absence.)
(Students using an
approved ADA accommodation for “modified attendance policy” will be granted one
extra absence; so the grade wouldn’t be affected even
with absences of 2 weeks + 1 class, but would
automatically become an F upon the 2 weeks + 2 classes.)
An exception to the
preceding is for students who are forced by quarantine rules to stay away from
classes. In such cases, the student should contact the instructor ASAP—and in
any case, prior to the first class missed due to quarantining.
The first recourse
students should use to catch up when absent—for any reason—is to look for a
communication from their Back-Up Buddy, a system to be explained and signed up
for in class. Students can also contact the instructor for added assistance, of
course.
As I hope
is obvious—or soon will be once the semester starts—the
fact that you are allowed some
absences without any automatic loss of grade should not be interpreted as a
recommendation to actually use said absences.
Not only do you want to avoid imprudently and prematurely emptying your bank
account only to find out that you’re getting walloped with a cold or some other
less than quarantining bug near the end of the semester, but your ability to
make sense of the material, your ability to become fluent in philosophically
informed ways of thinking, and your ability to succeed in your assignments
would be unhappily compromised in proportion to your number of absences.
Send
me mail: mstaber at smcm dot edu
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