Navigating College Attendance Policies: A Comprehensive Guide

College attendance policies play a crucial role in shaping a student's academic journey. Regular attendance is often considered a key factor in academic success, fostering a deeper understanding of course material and promoting engagement with instructors and peers. However, the landscape of attendance policies can be complex, varying across institutions, departments, and even individual courses. This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of college attendance policies, covering various aspects from general expectations to excused absences and the implications of non-attendance.

The Importance of Attendance

College instruction is designed for students to learn through class attendance, and regular attendance is a key to academic success. Attendance is based on class meetings and calculated from the first class meeting, not based on when the student enrolls in the class. Students are expected to punctually attend all class sessions in the courses for which they are registered. Late arrivals and/or early departures may count toward total absences in classes.

Existing research on class attendance consistently demonstrates an association between students’ regular class attendance and academic performance. Much of what we learn occurs in a social context in which learners have the opportunity to interact and engage with both more knowledgeable experts (instructors) and with similarly novice learners or peers. Individuals are motivated to engage in learning when they feel a sense of belonging to the community, are given choices, and are supported in mastering the content.

General Attendance Expectations

Students are generally expected to attend all scheduled classes and to arrive on time. Faculty typically record attendance from the first day of the semester. Students in all classes, regardless of instructional modalities, will be required to complete an attendance verification activity or assignment. The instructor’s policies regarding makeup work, if allowed, are defined in the syllabus, which is available in the LMS.

Instructor Responsibilities

Within their respective departmental guidelines, instructors are responsible for stating their own course attendance and tardiness requirements on course syllabi distributed at the beginning of the academic term. Regardless of how attendance is used in grading, faculty are required to keep a timely record of attendance for each student through the end of the semester using college-approved, record-keeping software.

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Instructors can help students make more positive decisions about class attendance by discussing how attendance supports their learning, supplying guidance on how to use supplemental course materials, and promoting incentives rather than penalties.

Student Responsibilities

It is the student’s responsibility to know and understand the attendance requirements for each instructor and to understand how attendance in class might affect his or her final grade. When a student is absent from class, the student is responsible for all material covered in class and for any assignments made in class. The instructor is not required or responsible for notifying a student of missed work. Students are responsible for checking grades posted in the Learning Management System (LMS), such as Canvas.

Attendance in Online and Hybrid Courses

Attendance in online (Internet, Internet Synchronous, Hybrid, Blended, and Hyflex) courses is measured not only by completion of an initial enrollment verification assignment (on or before the Census Date of the course) but also by completion of the required coursework and/or online participation, as defined by the instructor on the course syllabus. In courses with synchronous meeting times (Internet Synchronous, Hybrid, and Blended), students MUST meet on the required meeting dates specified (first class meeting, lab, etc.). When such occurs, students must participate.

Distance education students (that is, a student enrolled in at least one Virtual, Hybrid, Online, Videoconference, or Independent Study course) must complete the Attendance Verification assignment by the due date, or they will be administratively withdrawn from class without penalty.

Excused Absences

Colleges typically recognize that students may occasionally need to miss class due to circumstances beyond their control. Excused absences are generally granted for reasons such as:

Public Health Emergencies: If a student is asked to remain home due to a public health emergency, every effort will be made to ensure that the student remains on track with all coursework. Absences incurred during the recommended or directed self-isolation period will not violate an instructor’s attendance policy as long as the student has contacted the Dean of Students’ office prior to missing class.
Veteran & Military Service: If a veteran and/or military service member student receives orders for unexpected short-term deployment or training, or for medical appointments and/or hospitalization due to service-related injuries, absences that result from these orders or appointments will not count toward the total number of absences allowable per the attendance policy of each class in which that student is enrolled.
Religious Observance: Students will be allowed two days of excused absence each academic year for religious observances required by the faith of the student. Students are required to provide written notice of the request for an excused absence by completing the Religious Observance Absence form available in Student Services and Enrollment Management.
Jury duty/court appearance
Death in the immediate family
Illness
College-sponsored functions
Other reasons deemed appropriate by the instructor

When such an absence occurs, students are responsible for providing official documentation of the reason for the absence to the instructor. Make-up work, if allowed as stated in the course syllabus, may be accepted.

Procedures for Requesting Excused Absences

Students seeking an excused absence are generally required to provide appropriate documentation to support their request. This documentation may include:

Military orders or medical documentation from an approved provider (Military Hospitals, Veterans Healthcare Administration, and/or Veterans Community Care Program) in relation to service-connected injuries, to be verified for the respective department chair and the student’s instructor.
A Religious Observance Absence form submitted to the Vice President for Student Services and Enrollment Management or his/her designee a minimum of ten (10) school days prior to the religious observance.
Official documentation of the reason for the absence to the instructor.

Consequences of Non-Attendance

Excessive absences, regardless of the reason or circumstance, may interfere with the student’s ability to successfully complete the requirements of the course. In such cases, the student should withdraw from the class before the last date to withdraw with a grade of “W”. Withdrawal from class may affect eligibility for federal financial aid. Students should contact the Financial Aid Office for information prior to withdrawing from a class.

Students who have not attended at least once by the Census date of the course may be administratively dropped as a “No Show.” No-Show students will be removed from the class roster and will not be allowed to continue in the class.

Administrative Withdrawal

A student may be administratively withdrawn from any course for the following reasons:

Failure to adhere to a faculty member’s attendance criteria and/or policies as described in their course syllabus or in programmatic attendance criteria and/or policies as described in, but not limited to, Health Science Handbooks may result in administrative withdrawal before the published date for the last day to withdraw.
Failure to comply with “Standards of Practice” as established by the Alabama Board of Nursing, American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians, or other regulatory or licensing agencies for programs of study in the Health Sciences Division.
Students enrolled in a program within the Technical Education and Workforce Development Division of the College may be administratively withdrawn from any course for failure to attend class when the student has missed more than 20% of the total hours that the class meets.

Administrative withdrawal from class may affect eligibility for federal financial aid. Students should contact the Financial Aid Office for information.

Strategies to Promote Class Attendance

Instructors can employ various strategies to encourage class attendance and create a more engaging learning environment. These strategies include:

Explaining the value of attendance: Reflect on what in-class activities your course provides and share with students how these activities will help them learn. Provide an overview of and rationale for what you and the students will be doing during class.
Engaging students in class: Engage students in creating norms for participation, emphasizing that you want an environment in which all students feel safe to ask questions and make mistakes (i.e., learn!). Ask thoughtful questions and get responses from all students by using polling, small group discussions, or exit tickets.
Providing guidance on supplemental materials: Share what other things they can do to work towards the social learning experiences they missed (e.g., connecting with a classmate to go over classwork or study for the exam). Provide a brief overview of why these materials are included in your class and examples of how students might use them.
Promoting incentives rather than penalties: Offer students bonus points or extra credit for attendance. Faculty have found success in offering extra credit for answering in-class clicker questions or completing other brief activities, strategies which take attendance and reinforce learning. Use a token or ticket system. Offer all students a certain number of tokens that can be used for a class absence, lateness on an assignment, or a dropped quiz. Take attendance. The act of taking attendance says that attendance matters.
Preparing learning contracts: Some instructors use the first class meeting to negotiate class expectations and norms with their students while others establish the expectations prior to the start of classes. In either context asking students to sign a contract communicates the importance of the course expectations.
Sharing attendance policies: Whatever strategies you adopt in your class, it is important that your attendance policies are clearly stated in the syllabus. Academic Regulations provide detailed information on the University attendance policies.

Adding a Course Late or Reinstatement

After the last day to add a class for a term, students who wish to add a class or be reinstated to a class, must complete a Late Add/Reinstatement Request Form for review & approval or disapproval.

Final Examinations

The final examination schedule, announced prior to the beginning of the semester, sets the day and time for each examination. Once having been established, the schedule cannot be changed. A course instructor may, due to highly unusual circumstances, petition for a change in the examination schedule.

Students who are absent from an examination receive a course grade of AB (absent), which is equivalent to F (zero quality points), or FA (absent and failing regardless of performance on the final examination). When students are unable, for reasons clearly beyond their control, to take a traditional final examination at the scheduled time, they can be excused only by the director of Campus Health Services or their academic dean (who can issue an “examination excuse”).

Grading System

A letter-grade and plus/minus system for evaluating academic performance is employed for all undergraduates. Each letter grade corresponds to a number of grade points. To determine the grade point average for a term, first determine the total quality points earned in the term by multiplying the number of grade points awarded for each course by the course’s assigned number of semester credit hours and adding the resulting quality points earned for each course in the term.

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