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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