Student Government Resolution No. 28, passed at the LSU Student Senate’s final meeting of the semester Nov. 18, asked the Faculty Senate and LSU administration to consider improvements to the school’s absence policy, Policy Statement 22.
Policy Statement 22 addresses student absences from class and lists valid reasons for missing a class. The policy states professors must “assist those students who have valid reasons” for not attending.
Senator Jimmy Mickler authored the legislation and delivered opening comments before the Senate launched into debate. He said the policy’s phrasing left it open for interpretation for professors and needs a more definite procedure.
“There’s been a bunch of issues with that line not being strong enough,” Mickler said.
Mickler said this amendment adds the professor “will devise a system for making up any quiz, exam or other work” and that the made-up work should be “equal in difficulty to the original” and administered at a time agreed upon by both the professor and student.
Mickler said he had a class where the professor dropped one test a semester and used that as his make-up policy. If a student made a 40 percent on a test then missed another test for appendicitis, the 40 percent would be factored into the final grade, he said.
Senator Jacob Phagan asked if an assignment was due over a period of time and a student was sick on the final day it was due, would the student be able to make it up for full credit. Mickler said, under the current language, “not even a little bit.”
“It doesn’t even excuse you if you were to miss a test on one day,” Mickler said. “It really doesn’t excuse anything.”
Senator Jacob Boudreaux argued in favor of the resolution and read an email one of his constituents sent him about excused absences. The student missed classes after going to urgent care with nausea and dizziness and was told it was a bad reaction to medication.
The medicine the student was given to counteract the bad medicine made her sleep for 16 hours straight, Boudreaux said. After emailing the professor asking to make up an assignment because of the sudden illness, the student was told the assignment could not be made up because a valid excuse was not sent prior to the absence.
“It’s stuff like that, that really bothers me,” Boudreaux said. “Because the professors have academic freedom, there’s nothing we can do. Her grade is going to be lowered just because she was sick and didn’t know that she was going to be sick.”
Faculty Senate previously considered similar legislation, Mickler said, but there was a disagreement about the verbiage, and it did not move forward. He also said the Student Senate previously passed legislation asking for a change with a different policy.
One senator pointed out that SG President Andrew Mahtook has a similar desire in the Student Bill of Rights, and Mickler said he added that part to the document. Mickler said it would not be included unless the resolution was passed.