WHAT IS THE POLICY?

University Health Services (UHS) does not provide verification of illness forms or "class excuses" for minor illnesses or injuries that result in absence from classes.

Routine illness-related absences

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.

Significant, prolonged absences

For significant, prolonged illnesses lasting at least a week, UHS may provide "Verification of Significant Illness." These verifications will not be provided for illnesses such as colds, and flu-like or self-limited gastrointestinal illnesses. Verification will only be provided for serious illnesses for which UHS clinicians have provided services or for which the appropriate medical documentation from outside clinicians is provided to UHS.

When appropriate, students may request the verification during their clinician visit or may call the Clinical Services Advice Nurse at 863-4463 .

Outside Health Care Providers

If students have received care from an outside provider for a significant, prolonged illness, they must provide appropriate documentation to the director's office at 216 Ritenour Building.

Faculty Questions

If a faculty member has questions about a specific student, they can contact a nurse manager at 865-7120. However, due to patient confidentiality UHS cannot release specific information concerning the nature of an illness or injury without the student's consent.

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WHY IS IT LIMITED TO A PROLONGED, SIGNIFICANT ILLNESS?

In the past when students asked UHS for a verification of illness because they had been "sick for the last couple of days," the UHS staff was in no better position than members of the faculty to determine the validity of such requests. This placed both the students and UHS in an untenable position. Students felt pressured to obtain a verification of illness for each class absence and health care providers were left with the often impossible task of trying to determine the legitimacy of these requests. The verification of illness forms were easy to obtain, leading many students and faculty members to believe that they were "worthless." In some regards, they were correct.

The UHS policy is consistent with a modification of Faculty Senate policy and was made in consultation with the Faculty Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education. The rationale for the revision of Faculty Senate Policy 42-27: Class Attendance 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." Hopefully, this policy will reduce negative situations for students, faculty, and health care providers.

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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 caused him or her, in the judgment of the instructor, to become deficient scholastically, may run the risk of receiving a failing 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 an Academic Integrity (Policy 49-20).