Super Frustrated at Late Thanksgiving Week Class Cancellations

As expensive as they are, shouldn’t we get a refund when they are cancelled?

@Marigrow

No.

I am the evil instructor who never cancels class before the holiday, and I pity the student who runs to me on the first day of the semester to announce they’re going home early for break (well, aren’t YOU special). I can understand, OP, why you find the cancelled class upsetting, but not because your D could’ve come home earlier, but because you’re not getting what you paid for! Other than for illness or a real emergency, classes should not be cancelled last minute.

Ordinarylives, it should be fine whether students attend or not. Their decision, as adults. You are paid either way, and really any grading is determined by student’s mastery of the subject as evidenced by exams or papers, and not physical presence in class.

@roycroftmom - Some of my daughter’s college classes have attendance as part of the grade. Not all, but some. Totally depends on the prof.

Ours will get “deductions” for not attending particular classes and need to sign in. I applaud my child for arranging their flights as to be sure not to miss classes. Tries to give enough of a cushion. It teaches a work ethic. Yes, we are lucky to have these “first world” problems. I can understand the frustration though.

When I worked for the government, we almost always were ‘dismissed early’ on the day before a holiday. You had to wait to be dismissed, and if you’d already taken the day off you were not credited with that time. If your normal work day ended at 5 and we were dismissed at 2, you got 3 hours. If your normal work day ended at 7, you got 5 hours.

Life.

@roycroftmom Pedagogically, that’s pretty old school (and in a lot of places not even considered good practice anymore). Even at the college level in very large classrooms, the preferred learning is experiential, think lots of group work and active learning.

Just chalk up the few hundred extra in travel expense as the cost of attending an out of state private school. But with costs approaching $70k, additional airfare is a drop in the bucket.

(Written as someone who’s two kids attended college on the other coast, so I can understand, but not sympathize. When we signed up to send kids to college across country, we had no allusions that they would be coming ‘home’ for Thanksgiving.)

Please, ordinarylives. These are not elementary students getting gold stars for effort. At an adult level, I really don’t care how hard my doctor, lawyer or accountant tried, the only thing I am measuring is the result. If your student has mastered the material, there is no reason to show up for you to regurgitate it unless he wants to.

I’m with @ordinarylives . We have an attendance policy, and students can be and are failed for exceeding it. I do not teach to be regurgitated. Like ordinarilylives said, that’s an old school way of looking at college.

I will also agree that I don’t want students to “ask ahead of time.” You have a certain number of absences allowed–excused or not makes no different. Use them as you choose, but don’t ask me to teach you what you missed. Check the syllabus and ask a friend who was there. So yeah, I treat them like grownups.

I am glad that my college didn’t take attendance, nor measure accomplishment by seat time. No reason to waste anyone’s time teaching people things they already know, or can afford to miss. So if your student attends such a place, go ahead and schedule travel when convenient. Almost everyone misses a few classes along the way.

I think what the OP is asking is that the profs act like grownups, too. Decide at the beginning of the semester whether you are going to cancel that class, put it in the syllabus, and stick to it, It jerks parents and students around to change it close to the holiday. I don’t really expect profs to change…, but administrations COULD suggest this to faculty as a way to treat the time of students as respectfully as they hope to be treated.

@roycroftmom - It’s more than simply attendance in a lecture at some programs. 1/2 my daughter’s courses are more hands on, group based learning. If a group member is a no show, that totally sucks for the rest of the team and they are having to pick up the slack. Many of my daughter’s friends are leaving this Friday and blowing off M/T but DD has a three hour engineering course Monday afternoons and she wouldn’t abandon her team and expect them to pick up her slack. They will all be there too. It’s not about “trying”, it’s about showing up and being a productive and responsible team member. Let alone respecting the prof’s time.

I think where it gets grayer is when profs cancel at the last minute, like in the OP’s case.

@roycroftmom Believe what you like, but active learning is hardly about puffing up grades for effort or awarding points for putting a butt in a seat. College is about treating students like grown ups. You miss, you accept the consequences, just like you do in any other part of your life.

This happened most years to my daughter. I would book her Amtrak trains for round trip for Thanksgiving once she got her syllabus the first week of classes (which was a little late already and prices were pretty high). Each year she had classes on the Tuesday and I would book the train after her classes were over that day. Then most years her Tuesday classes got cancelled and she could have traveled home Monday after classes instead. She never found out about it until maybe the Thursday or Friday before and by then Amtrak was completely booked (never mind what the cost would have been.) She used that day to do laundry and pack. She always had homework over the break (sometimes significant amounts) and would lug it home with her.

I had no idea that there were college profs who actually kept attendance. Again I have to agree with roycroftmom…that’s the way it was anyway back in my college year and 3 decades ago when I was an adjunct. Keeping attendance wasn’t part of the college experience for student or teacher. You and your family pay for classes…and there isn’t exactly truancy laws governing college class attendance. I totally expected my kids to attend class lectures and I don’t think I would expect them orb e happy with them if they skipped out early to return home for a long weekend break, but if they did, that should be on them and really not something a prof should be monitoring like a parent of a child.

Not all classes are lecture based. Many are hands-on and participatory.

Also, if attendance weren’t required, in a run of the mill non-“elite” college, many more students would fail. I can guarantee that. That’s not just the student’s problem; that is a problem for the instructor and the institution as well, as they are judged and punished for issues with student persistence and graduation rates.

College is preparation for adult life. In our adult lives we often don’t know how work will affect our ability to take time off around Thanksgiving. Not everyone can take Wednesday off, and not everyone has Friday off, either. And sometimes, you don’t find out about that until the last minute! I don’t have a problem with kids experiencing this in college. Welcome to the real world, kiddo.