Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Establishing the rules of classroom attendance

(Kevin Dooley/Flickr) A large college lecture hall.
(Kevin Dooley/Flickr) A large college lecture hall.

Have you ever had a teacher that appears to dodge around their responsibilities as an instructor? In my experience, these types of people are the doctoral students too busy with their own work, the ancient lecture hall professors that were tenured long ago and those that just seem bored, lazy or unmotivated.

In many of our classes, teachers take attendance and will often make quite a fuss if you miss class, even if the information could be easily found elsewhere. Often teachers can use this as an excuse to give you a terrible class participation grade. All in all though, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a professor getting in trouble for missing class.

As students, we are the ones paying our professors’ salaries. Our tuition and presence at school is the only reason they work here. When a teacher decides to be late for class or not show up at all, don’t you feel a bit ripped off?

As a liberal arts major, it is already nearly impossible to imagine where all of my tuition money is spent. The new Integrated Learning Center is great, and I’m sure that cost a pretty penny, but that doesn’t quite redeem the years spent in Bartlett Hall, day-dreaming and wondering why I was paying thousands of dollars for facilities worse than those used for public K-12 grade classes.

Whatever the case, I barely see any bang for my buck and teachers are also seemingly aloud to skip. So, not only is college already abusively expensive, now I’m missing out on one of the actual areas I can see my money being spent – the salaries of my professors. I’m getting ripped off on top of getting ripped off and so are many of you.

Not only is it ridiculous that teachers don’t get penalized for missing classes because of their own personal priorities, but students aren’t allowed to use the same out-of-school responsibilities as an excuse of their own. On the University of Massachusetts website in the area concerning class attendance, the acceptable excuses to miss class include health problems, religious observance, sporting events, field trips and extreme extenuating circumstances such as a car crash.

So, even though we are the ones paying for our education, we can be penalized if we miss class for any other reasons. I’ve had multiple teachers miss classes this semester because they had a pressing concern at a second job or some sort of demand from their personal life. As a student though, working my way through college, I’m not excused from missing class if I need to cover a shift at work or if I just need to work some extra hours to pay rent. The logic of this just doesn’t add up at all.

Professors are essentially settled into their career or at least on a promising road to one. Students have to be in school and not get paid, while often working their asses off just to get by.

While researching this article, it was hard not to linger on the fact that student-athletes are allowed to miss class for sporting events. Now, I don’t really have anything against this policy. The problem I have is that student-athletes are allowed while others are not. This should just be an all or nothing type of situation.

Athletes work very hard to maintain their schoolwork while constantly training. Many athletes I have met retain busier schedules than most students. Many student athletes even get academic scholarships. Essentially, these sports equate to work for many of these students. They’re just paying their way through school less directly.

However, students whose parents don’t pay for their education, with work outside of school, often have schedules just as busy, if not busier, than student-athletes. Plus, as hard as student-athletes work, being an athlete is a privilege. Not every student has the physical ability or an upbringing with a family well-off enough to allow time to play sports. Under-privileged youths often have to work from a very young age, and high school sports can often take up too much time for the working student. We should support our student-athletes to the fullest extent, but they shouldn’t get special treatment above others who also have hectic lives.

As college students, we’ve all woken up exhausted and lazy and thus decided to impulsively skip school, persuaded by an illogical fog that clouds the tired mind. There isn’t really any great excuse for this, but there are many times that students with extenuating circumstances have important reasons to miss school.

Unfortunately for us, many professors hold their own personal lives in a higher esteem than their students, and allow themselves to miss class when they need to. We pay these professors. It isn’t the other way around. We should have the power to do as we please, within reason. We should all be on the same level as our student athletes. If we have a legitimate excuse to miss school, we should never be penalized. This just isn’t right.

Ian Hagerty is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].

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  • B

    BrittneyApr 21, 2015 at 8:41 pm

    Bill, I would just like to state that many students like myself attend every class possible! However, sometimes our hectic lives don’t allow us to make it to every class. This semester a cancelled flight back home from Europe (visiting my boyfriend of 2 years) caused me to miss the first week of class. I emailed my professors as soon as I found out, and most were very understanding. I had only one more absence allowed. I missed my third absence in one class a while ago, as I was sick. So I’ve made it the whole rest of the semester with just a single sick day! Until I walked in literally three minutes late due to my car battery being dead (I have a crappy car so things like this happen from time to time, I’m a poor student!). That particular professor marked me absent for being three minutes late, then proceeded to take points off of my grade. She refuses to let me make it up at all! Although I still have a 90, do I deserve to be penalized for bad luck that was out of my hands? I’m paying thousands for my education, and I’m one of the few students who participates in the class discussion. Yet because I have a busy life I am penalized. That same professor has been late a few times this year, and was out sick today. I’ve had another teacher cancel 6 classes so far this semester. But we, the students who pay for these classes, are expected to not get sick or have issues pop up? There are semesters where I’ve had zero absences, but I’m not always that lucky apparently. Why should missing a few classes effect my grade if I can study hard and get A’s on the majority of my exams!? Especially when in some classes being in class doesn’t necessarily mean I learn anything from them. I pay attention in all my classes but I have to admit, most of the learning is done outside of class anyways.

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  • D

    DickNov 26, 2014 at 1:01 pm

    You bring up an important negative facet of tenure which plagues education at all levels. This professorial abuse has been going on decades and will never change if educators are not held accountable. Tenure needs radical reform. Even if you don’t believe in test score standards as a way to measure teachers, certainly a re-certification process every 3-5 years make sense. If you were unproductive in private business, manufacturing or technology, you’d be out in a very short period of time.

    As for you skipping class, that part of your article is just silly. Really, the “he did it so I can do it argument” should have gotten tired by now. The prof is not your 5 year old brother. What many college students don’t see is that your education is YOUR JOB. For many privileged students, it’s the ONLY responsibility you have. When I was at UMASS, too many people were on the 5 year plan, lazing their early twenties away. My old man was pretty clear about that: paying for college ONCE. Don’t fail out, don’t take more than 4 years. Do yourself a favor: wring every last ounce of learning and knowledge out of your education. You’ll never have this much time on your hands again. There is still plenty of time for partying and X-box but don’t be a douche. You have ONE job, to prepare yourself for life after college. The skill-less (i.e. liberal arts/communications/make your own major) will be working at Starbucks, wondering where the last 4 years went. The ambitious will find a way to get something in their chosen field despite the very real challenges of the labor market. Don’t skip class, you knucklehead. Leave it to the dummies in your dorm who will want to pour coffee professionally in a just a few years.

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  • B

    billNov 21, 2014 at 8:45 am

    Quit whining and just go to class. I’ve never had a professor who would penalize you if you had a legitimate excuse.

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