Attendance

Students taking courses in any format at the University are expected to be diligent in their studies and attend class regularly. Regular class attendance and academic engagement is important in achieving learning outcomes in the course and correlates in many cases with participation. As such it may be a valid consideration in determining final grades. At the beginning of each course, the instructor will inform students of the relevance of class attendance to the final grade.

Students who are officially enrolled in U.S. domestic classes are expected to be in regular attendance or communicate with the instructor prior to the class date. All online, mixed-mode, enhanced distance learning, directed study, and in-class classes are assigned regular attendance rosters. Students who are absent without prior approval of the instructor will be marked as absent. Consecutive absences by the student may indicate the student has vanished and may result in the student being withdrawn from the class by the university. 

The U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) requires documentation of course attendance/academic engagement for students receiving VA benefits. The U.S. Department of Education requires documentation of course attendance/last day of academic engagement for students who receive federal financial aid.

It is the student's responsibility to officially withdraw from a course in which he or she has enrolled but does not intend to continue. If a student vanishes before 60% of the course has transpired, has not done the work, and fails to initiate the procedure for official course withdrawal, a grade of 0.0 or Unofficial Withdrawal (UW) will be awarded. If the student's attendance/academic engagement has been documented through 60% or more of the course, but the student has not been diligent about turning in the required assignments according to the course syllabus, the final grade will be awarded based on the work completed.

(Policy #3500.18)