Absent Student Protocol

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Students who miss a number of consecutive class sessions are often in some kind of serious academic and/or personal trouble. Because of this, faculty should note such situations and act according to the following guidelines.

  • To assure that you and the Registrar’s Office have accurate information about students in your courses, please verify your rosters early in the semester, as per the instructions of the Registrar’s Office. This will ensure that you, the Registrar's Office, and Academic Advising have accurate listings of which students are in which courses.

In the event that a student in your course has unexplained absences for a period of one week or more, you should do one or more of the following, as the situation requires:

  • Contact the student in question by email or phone to ascertain the reason for the sustained absences and raise a "Attention Concern" flag in Starfish.
  • If you are unable to contact the student directly or prefer not to do so, please contact the student’s academic advisor (which you can find in the student's profile in Starfish). Do not use the "Attendance Concern" flag if you do not want the student to be notified; however, you may use the "General Concern" flag, which will not notify the student but will let the advisor and Academic Advising be aware of the concerns.
  • If you are unable to contact the student and/or advisor, contact Academic Advising, who will work with the appropriate university personnel to locate the student, assess the situation, and determine appropriate action.

In the event that you, in your capacity as an academic advisor, have been contacted about one of your advisees who has missed a week or more of class, you should do one or more of the following:

  • Contact the advisee in question by email or phone to ascertain what the situation is. If there is a problem and you feel comfortable doing so, please direct the student to the appropriate office or person on campus. If you do not feel comfortable doing so or you are uncertain about who the appropriate person is, please contact Academic Advising.
  • Contact your advisee’s other professors to ascertain whether the absenteeism is occurring in more than one course.
  • If you are unable to contact the advisee or the advisee’s professors, contact Academic Advising, who will work with the appropriate university personnel to locate the student, assess the situation, and determine appropriate action.