<p>I'm currently at a community college and about to transfer to a UC however I received a pretty alarming email today from my professor. The email said that since I have missed a couple of classes that I would now be "dropped" from his class. This is all fine and dandy but the drop date for my college was on 11/26 and it was 12/3 when he sent me the email. I checked on my class schedule and sure enough I was not dropped from his class, however when I checked online to see my grade for the last assignment I submitted it was a 0 and a note next to it saying that I have been dropped from his class.</p>
<p>Now this is really making me angry. If the teacher wanted to drop me from his class he should have dropped me like any normal teacher would have. What this teacher is doing now is keeping me in his class because he has no power to drop me from the system but intentionally giving me 0% on every assignment I submit from now until the end of the semester which is in 1 week.</p>
<p>I have sent emails to the dean of the department as well as the president and I'm hoping to meet and talk with at least one of them tomorrow.</p>
<p>If I get an F in this class I won't be able to transfer and I'm pretty much screwed. Does anyone have any tips or ideas on how to deal with this situation? I'm pretty sure a teacher cannot purposely give me an F in the class just because I missed a few classes right?</p>
<p>I'm pretty worried now I'd appreciate any help I can get.</p>
<p>I’m in the opposite situation, I’m trying to drop from my class and my professor won’t let me because she wants me to get an F instead. The same case is with almost everyone else in the class. Everyone is failing and she doesn’t curve. To make it worse our final only had 1 question on it, which was 40% of our total grade. There’s pretty much no partial credit so if you miss this one question, you don’t pass the class.</p>
<p>Is there anything in the syllabus about absences and grades? I know that some of my classes have a ‘if you miss more than x number of classes, you fail. No ifs, ands, or buts’.</p>
<p>It’s pretty obvious you haven’t just missed a “couple” of classes. He’s choosing an odd way to fail you, though. If you’re handing in assignments and he’s making them all 0’s, I’d figure out how to challenge those grades through the university. However, there’s nothing stopping him from going ahead and failing you anyway for skipping his class, which he’ll probably do. A lot of my professors who really care about attendance take away points for missing class.</p>
<p>The prof certainly should be free to penalize you for never going to class. But it seems like he should have put his grading criteria in the syllabus or something at the start of class. If class participation or attendance are required, he should make that a portion of the grade. It doesn’t seem right that he would be able to give you low grades on assignments you turned in on time for a reason other than low quality of work on that assignment. It would be fair for him to reduce your grade if you miss something in the assignment or on a test that was discussed in class and is not in the reading, though.</p>
<p>Can you tell us what he communicated (hopefully in writing) about grading for the class? If you have something in writing that does not include any components of attendance or class participation in the grading rules, then I would say you should take that in and discuss it with the prof first. Don’t lose it even if he is a jerk. But show him his own grading rubric, and let him know that now that you understand that attendance is required, you will be there for the rest of the semester. If he doesn’t budge, politely leave and take your info to the dean. Keep turning in your assignments just in case (and I say go back to class – now that you know it IS important to this prof, start doing it).</p>
<p>Going to the dean is about all you can do in terms of action. </p>
<p>If you indeed missed more than a couple (ie. 2), then you’d have to refer to the stated attendance policy for the class. I personally have a hard time believing any professor would automatically fail someone for only missing 2 classes. However, I find it completely reasonable that this professor would fail you if you in fact missed many classes. This policy could be fair in my mind if the class only meets once per week or something like that.</p>
<p>The professor can and will fail you if you miss more than the allocated amount of classes on the syllabus. As many have stated before, this is usually set at 2 unexcused absences and many excused absences, so it seems pretty obvious that you have skipped a lot of classes and are upset that you are now being punished for it. If you have gone over the amount of absences allowed in the class, then quite honestly you have nobody to blame but yourself and the professor should fail you. It’s harsh, but call it a lesson learned.</p>
<p>"This policy could be fair in my mind if the class only meets once per week "</p>
<p>That’s what I’m wondering, too. When missing one class = missing 10% of the classroom time, severe penalties for missing are common. Even if the professor is following a rule he wrote or stated at the beginning of the term, you can still throw yourself on his mercy and beg for a second chance. The way to do this is to make an appointment to see him during office hours. At the meeting, ACCEPT THE BLAME, apologize, acknowledge that you violated the policy, and just ask if there is any way you can make it up with additional effort and perfect attendance from now on. It may not work, but it is worth a try if you are genuinely contrite and don’t say things like he’s failing you “on purpose.” People do not take jobs teaching at community colleges because they enjoy flunking students.</p>
<p>How many classes did you attend/how many classes did you skip? Did you skip a large number in a row, so maybe the professor thought you had dropped, and was just formalizing the situation on this assumption? Did you keep up with the class assignments, get lecture notes etc?</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, why didn’t you go to class?</p>