Editorial: Attendance Policy? Bueller? Bueller?…

By The Editorial Board

Woody Allen once said, “90 percent of success is just showing up.” Here at Fordham, “showing up” can count for as much as 20 percent.

Among Fordham’s many rules, the university has a relatively strict policy regarding class attendance. According to the Student Handbook for both Fordham College Rose Hill, Gabelli School of Business and Fordham College Lincoln Center, students are expected to attend “every class of every course for which they are registered.” It justifies the policy by saying that “each class meeting has its own dynamics and provides a unique opportunity for learning.”

There are, of course, exceptions. The university rightly cites exceptions for religious holidays and university events. It goes a bit further — despite its “expectation” — and states that students are permitted a number of unexcused absences over the course of a semester. For example, students may not miss more than six classes for a course that meets three times per week. For a class that meets two days per week, the maximum is four unexcused absences. The policy also requires that a more stringent policy set by a professor must be approved by his or her department.

Despite the purported benefits of the university-wide policy, mandating attendance, coupled with the way it is enforced by professors, does an exceptional disservice to Fordham students. In the editorial board’s opinion, the policy should be removed from the university handbook for a number of reasons.

The first reason is that attending class Fordham is a service for which students pay. Students should have the right to choose when they use and when they do not use the service. Punishing students for missing class — most commonly in the form of a grade penalty or some other pre-decided method — penalizes the utilization of a student’s right to choose not to use the service for which he or she is paying.

Placing such an authority in Fordham professors makes their job description resemble that of an army sergeant who must carry out a roll call each day. And yet, professors are not paid to document the presence of adults via a roll call each class period, but to design interesting courses, prepare engaging lectures and assess the ability of their students to understand and analyze course material.

On the contrary, rewarding students for attending class, which usually comes in the form of a class participation grade, is nothing more than a pat on the back for doing something they already agreed to do.

Even so, there is a dilemma due to the university’s liberally and unfairly enforced idea of “attendance.” One of the greatest disservices that has developed as a result of a mandatory attendance policy is that students who choose to spend class time on their laptops, tablets, and cell phones are privileged with the status of “present,” despite a blatant lack of presence.

Tapping away at a screen is not only a gross act of disrespect toward a professor but is also disrespectful to other students. It is distracting to sit behind a student who is online shopping or watching a sports game without sound. Each time a professor marks a student who spends the class period on his or her laptop as “present,” it is an injustice to students who focus in class and take notes.

We do not think they should be penalized for it, but they should be not be granted the same reward as a student who is truly present. Making these two choices should come to an end at Fordham.

Eliminating the mandatory attendance policy also places more responsibility on students to take initiative in learning and succeeding while at college. For those who choose not to attend class, their penalty would come in the form of poor performance on papers and exams. This will reward students who attend class, bringing both short-term benefits (a high GPA, a more complete education) and long-term benefits (a concrete understanding of responsibility, the pitfalls of indifference and laziness).

One could argue that an attendance policy is only a slight inconvenience for professors to enforce and that it adds pressure on students to focus on learning, and resist the temptation to skip. We believe the attendance policy is ultimately a disservice to the campus community. Students should be rewarded for doing well, not for just showing up.

We believe that students should go to class. We equally maintain that students who score well on exams without attending class should not be penalized for doing so.

However, we believe that there are plenty sufficient systems already in place to encourage students to go to class and perform well at Fordham, which includes, but is not limited to, midterm grades for underclassmen, grade point averages, advising meetings, familial demands, academic motivation, societal pressures, grade minimums for athletes, requirements for scholarship students, career prospects, personal accountability and the monetary investment in attending a private university.

There is little reason to believe that an attendance policy should be another system on this already-exhaustive list.

Tagged: Attendance Policy Editorial