<p>I had an asthma attack this morning and missed an exam while getting looked at and treatment at the Student Health Center.</p>
<p>I emailed my professor from my phone while I was still there explaining how I had a virus the past couple days but then had the asthma attack. However she emailed me back saying the syllabus clearly states if you are going to miss an exam you need to let her know with written documentation by 5:00 p.m. the night before in order to be allowed a make up one.</p>
<p>I then explained to her how my virus alone would not have prevented me from going to class, but the asthma attack did which I had no possible way of anticipating beforehand.</p>
<p>I am going to talk to her tomorrow morning and explain how I have suffered from severe asthma my whole life and show her all the documentation and medicine/steroids they prescribed to me (like 5 things).</p>
<p>What else should I say to convince her to let me make up the exam? It seems so unfair because this is an unusual circumstance I had no clue would happen to me by 5:00 p.m. the night before. I haven't missed a class and have gotten good feedback in all the homework so far. I just want to do well in this class. Please help!</p>
<p>Ask the physician who treated you at the Student Health Center to write a note to the professor. The physician can explain that an asthma attack cannot be predicted in advance. </p>
<p>What if someone had an automobile accident on the way to the exam? That couldn’t be predicted by 5:00 pm the evening before, either.</p>
<p>Well when I asked the doctor said he wasn’t allowed to write notes for missed class, I don’t know why. He just sent me to get photocopies of all my receipts and prescription stuff. But yeah, I agree you can’t always predict things, the car accident is a good example.</p>
<p>Go to the disabilities office and explain the situation. They usually have pull over the profs, especially since they don’t want the college to end up in the middle of a disabilities lawsuit. That way the discussion can be between that office and the prof and you can be the innocent victim in the middle. Note that how effective this is will vary with the particular college of course.</p>
<p>That stance of the prof is ridiculous - no one can know what might afflict them in the future. In my kid’s case all it takes is simply getting stung by a bee which is real hard to predict.</p>
<p>Most colleges have something called a Dean’s Excuse, and they are issued if the Health Center certifies that you were sick. If you were having an acute asthma attack, that is a serious health issue and a completely legitimate reason to miss an exam. I’m surprised the Health Center won’t help you, but perhaps the Dean of Students office can help you figure out the procedure.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure to qualify as disabled due to asthma, at least by Social Security Disability Insurance, it needs to be severe enough where you have severe attacks constantly requiring physician intervention despite medication and daily walking and stuff causes it. Normally mine are controlled by my inhaler/nebulizer and I do not need to stay in the hospital overnight like I used to. So I’m not sure if I would qualify at our Disability Office. Should I still explain it to them?</p>
<p>And I just looked it up, my school does not have a Dean’s Excuse or official absence according to Registrar’s policy on absences, it’s up to the professor.</p>
<p>What AnnieZ said - go to your Dean. Even though your college doesn’t have a formal appeals process advertised, and it says that it’s up to the professor, there has to be some means of appeals.</p>
<p>Go to the disabilities office anyway. They can intervene in this area not just for people with chronic issues (what you’re picturing as being ‘disabled’) but also people who have a sudden severe illness, break an arm, etc. In your case you were clearly disabled at that time.</p>
<p>The worse they can do is tell you they can do nothing for you.</p>
<p>I missed the exam because my appendix ruptured this morning - “Sorry, you know the policy is you were supposed to notify me by 5PM yesterday.” </p>
<p>I missed the exam because I dislocated my shoulder this morning and was having it put back in place – “Sorry, you know the policy is you were supposed to notify me by 5PM yesterday.”</p>
<p>Too bad this professor doesn’t understand the implicit policy that faculty members are supposed to have some common sense.</p>
<p>There are exceptions if such terms place undue burdens on students who are medically ill, disabled, and/or violate university/Federal policies/laws. There’s a time and a place to be legalistic about contracts…and a time to toss that all out of the window. The OP’s situation is one of those times and if the Prof insists on maintaining that stance, she’s shown herself to be a jerk seriously lacking in basic decency and common sense.</p>
<p>I agree, I am going to talk to the professor first thing in the morning before I go to anyone else. I guess what I need advice on is how exactly to word this to my professor and help persuade her against her initial statement so that I don’t have to go over her head. Obviously I’ll stay calm and polite. I just need help coming up with the best way to convince a clearly stubborn professor.</p>
<p>This is why you and others with medical problems or other disabilities should have registered with the disabilties office in the first place. Not saying this to bring you down, but to help others avoid this kind of thing. It is harder to play catch up like this. The disabilities office would have given you a letter to give to each of your professors stating that you were registered and listing possible accommodations, including help for unexpected absences.</p>
<p>However, even with this, most students need to go to the health services to get the problem documented (this could be sent to a dean, then sent to a professor), and even then, often, with absences, it is up to the professor. For some reason, absence policies seem to be the last frontier to fall.</p>
<p>I would mention too that side effects of meds can make going to class difficult. You should get a notetaker arranged for as an accommodation in case your hands are too shaky to take notes.</p>
<p>Are you on preventative meds like inhaled steroid, all the time, or only with viruses? If the latter, try catching it and doing more earlier. Do you use a peak flow meter? That can help catch a change in your peak flow further in advance. Forgive me if your asthma is intractable and you are already doing these things.</p>
<p>You’ve already communicated with the prof and didn’t get anywhere. You can try talking with the prof face to face to see if there’s a different reaction on the prof’s part but there might not be. If you’re going to do that, bring the documentation of your visit to the health center and just be straight up and tell the prof “sorry, but I had an attack and needed to seek immediate medical assistance - I had no way to know the previous evening that I’d have the attack the next day”. Hopefully that’ll be enough to convince the prof. Note that sometimes people are friendlier and less flippant face to face than on email/text/fb/etc. </p>
<p>Keep everything calm and civil.</p>
<p>If the prof refuses to budge then just calmly leave the office and go ahead and go to the disabilities office and/or the dean and see if you can get an accommodation for this.</p>
<p>I would try a face to face with the prof one more time, bring in the documentation you have that you were really in the heath services though. If that doesn’t work, get your adviser involved. He/She should know what the next steps to take would be. </p>
<p>The “snotty” response that keeps coming to my mind is “I’m sorry, my roommate broke my crystal ball last weekend so I wasn’t able to foretell this asthma attack by 5:00 last night”. :D.</p>
<p>Even if this were a “contract”, there are always arguments that would be able to be brought forth for such a situation: act of god, impossibility of performance, and that the syllabus is a contract of adhesion for which the student has no negotiating power.</p>
<p>I had situation in undergrad which at first sounded awful. I was planning on dropping a course, and I did not go to the mid term. When I went to the professor with my drop slip, he screamed at me that he would not have a student fail the test and then try to drop the course. I said that I didn’t even take the test. In that division of the university, they allowed 3 weeks to drop, and it was after 3 weeks. In the division that I attended they allowed 8 weeks to drop, and it was before that time. This was a course for students NOT in his division. I think you see where I am heading. I went to an assistant dean in my division, and she groveled with him, and he agreed that I could drop the course. Before the groveling, she told me that if he refused to sign, I was pretty well screwed (I would not have passed the course without the test.) I think at that time all I could have done was to go to the university ombudsman for a hearing on it, if he resisted. However, someone else’s groveling was helpful. One of the things she said was “professor, I think she should be allowed to drop the course.”</p>
<p>If you do not succeed with the professor, there should be higher authorities who can go to bat for you. Good luck.</p>
<p>I don’t believe a syllabus can be considered a legal contract. It is just a syllabus agreement. </p>
<p>People get ill at the last minute all the time, including the professor, and miss classes or tests. If you have a doctors note that indicates the illness/injury prevented you from attending class I can’t believe that some mechanism doesn’t exit to handle the situation.</p>
<p>This situation must happen at every college at least once.</p>