WHAT IS THE POLICY?

University Health Services (UHS) may provide verification of illness forms or “class excuses” for significant, prolonged illnesses or injuries resulting in absence from classes.
UHS does not provide verification of illness forms for minor or routine illnesses or injuries.

Return to top of page

WHAT IS CONSIDERED A PROLONGED, SIGNIFICANT ILLNESS?

A significant, prolonged illness is a serious illness or injury lasting at least a week. Medical documentation is required, either from UHS clinicians or outside clinicians.

When appropriate, students may request the verification during their UHS clinician visit or may call the UHS advice nurse at 863‐4463. If students have received care from an outside provider for a significant, prolonged illness, they must provide appropriate documentation to the UHS Director of Clinical Services, 309 Student Health Center.

Return to top of page

WHAT IS CONSIDERED A ROUTINE ILLNESS-RELATED ABSENCE?

A routine illness would be a minor illness or injury, such as colds and flu‐like or self‐limited gastrointestinal illnesses.

For routine illness‐related absences, students should correspond directly with the faculty as soon as possible regarding their situation, ideally before they miss a class, exam, or other evaluative activity.

Return to top of page

FACULTY QUESTIONS

If a faculty member has questions about a specific student, they can call the UHS Administration office at 865‐6555. Due to patient confidentiality, UHS cannot release specific information concerning the nature of an illness or injury without the student’s consent.

UHS policy is consistent with Faculty Senate Policy 42‐27; Class Attendance. The rationale for this policy notes that “the process of determining the legitimacy of the reasons for absences is frequently cumbersome and leads to negative situations that inhibit the quality of learning and teaching for both the students and faculty.”

The goal of the policy is to reduce negative situations for students, faculty and health care providers.

Return to top of page

FACULTY SENATE POLICY 42-27

The faculty, staff and other resources of the University are furnished for the education of students who attend the University. A class schedule is provided for students and faculty so that a reasonably orderly arrangement for instruction is facilitated. The fact that classes are scheduled is evidence that the faculty believes class instruction is important. Therefore, class attendance is important for the benefit of students.

Accordingly, it is the policy of the University that class attendance by students be encouraged and that all instructors organize and conduct their courses with this policy in mind. A student should attend every class for which the student is scheduled and should be held responsible for all work covered in the courses taken. In each case, the instructor should decide when the class absence constitutes a danger to the student’s scholastic attainment and should make this fact known to the student at once. A student whose irregular attendance causes him or her, in the judgment of the instructor, to become deficient scholastically, may run the risk of receiving a failing grade or receiving a lower grade that the student might have secured had the student been in regular attendance.

Instructors should provide, within reason, opportunity to make up work for students who miss class for regularly scheduled, University‐approved curricular and extracurricular activities (such as Martin Luther King Day of Service, field trips, debate trips, choir trips, and athletic contests). However, if such trips are considered by the instructor to be hurting the student’s scholastic performance, the instructor should present such evidence for necessary action to the head of the department in which the course is offered and to the
dean of the college in which the student is enrolled or to the Division of Undergraduate Studies if the student is enrolled in that division.

Instructors should provide, within reason, opportunity to make up work for students who miss classes for other legitimate but unavoidable reasons. Legitimate, unavoidable reasons are those such as illness, injury, family emergency. If an evaluative event will be missed due to an unavoidable absence, the student should contact the instructor as soon as the unavoidable absence is known to discuss ways to make up the work.

An instructor might not consider an unavoidable absence legitimate if the student does not contact the instructor before the evaluative event. Students will be held responsible for using only legitimate, unavoidable reasons for requesting a make‐up in the event of a missed class or evaluative event. Requests for missing class or an evaluative event due to reasons that are based on false claims may be considered violations of the policy on Academic Integrity (Policy 49‐20).