By Sarah Wright
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Genuine Hardship
In a recent opinion piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Christopher A. Hirschler, a professor, extolled the benefits of college faculty accepting excuses from students and peers. You never know what your students are dealing with, he says, and if their performance is slipping, it could be due to genuinely traumatic events in their lives that are preventing them from being their best.
In the piece, Hirschler recounts the story of a student of his who turned in a paper past deadline. He emailed her praising the paper, but pointing out that she'd be doing better in his class if she turned her work in on time. The student responded to this email lightheartedly and said she'd get herself together soon. She didn't tell her professor until later that in fact, her mother had recently committed suicide, and the student had assumed responsibility for her younger siblings, since their father was in Afghanistan.
The Necessity of Empathy
Hirschler uses this example as a teachable moment. Sometimes your students deserve some empathy. Sometimes they don't tell you when their lives are crumbling around them. If they keep it to themselves, you might just see an increasingly lazy student, when the reality is actually much more devastating than that.
Unfortunately, though, not all of the students turning in papers late are genuinely suffering from traumatic extenuating circumstances. Come crunch time - be it midterms, finals week or the due date of a major exam or assignment - college faculty know they're going to be hearing some excuses from students who didn't get themselves together in time, whether those excuses are valid and acceptable or not.
Convenient Timing, or Just Bad Luck?
In another editorial for The Chronicle, William Pannapacker, a college professor in Michigan, spoke of his own experience with the death of a grandparent just before finals week when he was a student. Though he says he regrets that he did not go to her funeral, he didn't even think of asking his professors for time off. This was mostly because he didn't know that he could be excused from finals, a misunderstanding that apparently contrasts sharply from the students he teaches. He says that when he was a student, he 'was not yet aware of how many college students' grandmothers--and, more rarely, grandfathers--supposedly die when papers are due and exams are pending.'
In the piece, Pannapacker weighs the pros and cons of accepting or rejecting a student's excuses. On the one hand, demanding proof of death may come off as callous and even monstrous when a student is facing a personal tragedy. On the other hand, students can easily fabricate a seemingly valid excuse, and it is unfair to other students to just accept these excuses without seeking any proof.
Because it's so easy for some students to lie, both practically and morally, it may make sense for students who are facing circumstances that will genuinely impact their academic performance to furnish some proof. It may seem like an unfair step, but given the frequency with which professors are given invalid excuses, it might not be such a bad idea.
The key to avoiding bogus excuses may be to keep yourself well-organized. Some students are able to balance schoolwork with other commitments without sacrificing quality in either area.
