Attendance and Participation Policy
For classroom, laboratory, video conference, and clinical courses, students are expected to attend each meeting of each class in which they are enrolled. For online courses, students are expected to participate at a level acceptable to the faculty in accordance with federal guidelines and the course plan for Regular and Substantive Interaction. Attendance and participation policies are determined by the faculty and must be noted on each course syllabus.
Approximately one week after the end of the add/drop period on the date specified on the academic calendar, faculty will assign a No-Show status (NS) to those students who did not attend or participate in a course in a substantive manner. Students assigned an NS will be dropped from the course, which will be removed from the student's transcript; students will not be charged for the class. Students may request reinstatement in a course from which they are dropped by NS, but faculty retain the right to determine, based on their professional judgement, if they will reinstate a student.
Following the NS roster submission, students will remain enrolled in the course unless the student received a NS or the student chooses to withdraw from the class. A withdrawal from a course will be reflected on a student’s transcript as a W grade. The W grade does not calculate into term or cumulative GPA and has no earned credit but can impact financial aid standing. Review Adding, Dropping or Withdrawing from a Course for more information. At the end of the semester students will receive a letter grade for the course. Absences related to jury duty, religious holidays, and pregnancy may be excused without penalty. Review Student Absence Policies for more information about protected circumstances.
Faculty are responsible for clearly stating their attendance and participation policy and how it may factor into their grading policy in their course syllabus. In every case, the faculty has full and final authority to decide whether a student is permitted to make up work that was missed due to absence or lack of participation and to determine the terms of the makeup work.
Documenting Attendance in Distance Education Courses
Changes to federal financial aid regulations in recent years have highlighted the importance of accurate reporting on student attendance and participation in all courses, including online courses. To stay in compliance with federal financial aid regulations, the college is providing the following procedural guidance for faculty filling out non-participation rosters for distance education courses.
Quoted from the Federal Student Aid Handbook: “In a distance education context, documenting that a student has logged into an online class is not sufficient, by itself, to demonstrate academic attendance by the student. A school must demonstrate that a student participated in class or was otherwise engaged in an academically related activity, such as by contributing to an online discussion or initiating contact with a faculty member to ask a course-related question.” FSA Handbook, Volume 5, Chapter 2.
For practical purposes, this means that a student needs to be more than merely logging in to an online course (without showing any other kind of active participation) to be considered in academic attendance. Given the wide range of approaches used to teach online courses, monitor student activity, and assess student performance, individual faculty members are best positioned to determine whether their students are in attendance in a distance education course. However, to stay in compliance with federal financial aid regulations, that determination must consist of something more than a student just logging in and out of a course.
A student may be removed from a course for inappropriate classroom behavior that is in clear violation of the Student Code of Conduct.
Revised: 2022-2023 Academic Catalog (Effective Fall 2022)