<p>I go to a University that has a mandatory attendance policy, but some professors decide their own attendance rules because they can somehow..... There is a rule in the attendance policy that states, if all the students in a class do not show up for at least the first 30 minutes of class, the University would consider that class not occurring that day.</p>
<p>Anyway, I missed class last Friday, and everyone including the professor organized a skip day for today, but the professor had to show up for the first 30 minutes anyway.</p>
<p>I showed up, and he told me at the end of class that he organized a skip day, but it was a complete failure, and everyone but me was marked absent for today... He wouldn't tell me why he organized a skip day...</p>
<p>Why do they attempt to organize skip days?? </p>
<p>I have never heard of this either. I’m an adjunct, and if I need to cancel a class, I just announce that. (It has only happened once, though, when I was down with influenza and couldn’t get out of bed.) I email the students and send a message to the college so that someone can post a note in the classroom. </p>
<p>I guess my University is the only one maybe. My professor had originally stated in the beginning of class on the first day that he is not allowed to cancel class unless no one shows up. He’s not allowed to tell students that he would cancel class. I’m assuming his email must be monitored, as no reminder was sent out.</p>
<p>This is what I was told today, “I told everyone on Friday that I wanted to cancel class on Monday by having none of you show up. You showed up, and now I have to mark everyone but you as absent.”</p>
<p>Professors have skip days due to having to go out of town or if they’re too sick to teach or don’t have anyone who could sub in for them. I’ve also had a lecturer cancel class for a day to give the students a break.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s crazy… Professors usually only miss class when they have a conference or when they’re really sick and they can’t get anyone to cover their classes. I’ve had the chairs of my departments fill in for certain classes when we couldn’t afford to miss and then sometimes we just wouldn’t have an in-person class but our professor would put something online for us to do. </p>
<p>Is this a private school or a smaller community college? </p>
<p>Just bizarre. If I want to cancel class, I cancel class. I’m <em>supposed</em> to notify people, but usually it’s so last minute that I can’t, and if I’m being <em>naughty</em> I’d rather my dean didn’t know about it. If I have to leave campus for a conference or something, sure, I’ll try to arrange a substitute.</p>
<p>As for that thirty minute thing? Occasionally a break falls on a weird day of the week, or there’s a big football game, or <em>something</em> happens that pulls my students away. If it’s clear within the first 10 minutes that I’m down to ~30% or less, I just tell everyone to go home. (Typically, it’s because I’m teaching something the students can’t survive without knowing, so I let it keep till more are present.) There are no rules that guide this stuff, either.</p>
<p>Maybe there are technicalities that untenured faculty feel they have to follow because they fear for their jobs. Still seems weird. My policies haven’t changed much since I was a TA in the late 80s.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of that before. It seems really strange to me. How long are your classes? If the professor has to be there for the first thirty minutes, it seems like they should just have class that day since the professor is just sitting there anyway. Couldn’t they just end class early and it would be the same thing? It seems unfair that everyone gets marked absent when the professor told them not to come. I’m assuming it won’t affect their grade, but the fact that he took attendance to begin with suggests that it will.</p>