Work Missed During the Term

The basic responsibility for permitting postponement of work during the term is the instructor’s. However, the residential college dean has authority to give permission for a student to make up work missed or delayed during the term because of an incapacitating illness or incapacitating condition of any kind, the death of a family member, or a comparable emergency. The residential college dean also has authority to give permission to make up work missed because of the observance of religious holy days and because of participation required in intercollegiate varsity athletic events. Only in these cases does a residential college dean have authority to give a student permission to make up late work during term time. The college dean conveys this permission by means of a special form that is sent to the instructor. It is expected that the instructor will honor the residential college dean’s permission to make up late or missed work in the instructor’s course.

Students participating in events of intramural or club sports, as differentiated from varsity events sponsored by the Department of Athletics, are not eligible for a postponement of work by the dean on account of those events.

In all other cases of work missed during the term, permission to make up course work must be secured directly from the instructor of the course, since the instructor is the only person who can decide, in the context of the nature and requirements of the course, whether such permission is appropriate.

Instructors have latitude in how they may accommodate students. For instance, rather than offer a make-up problem set, some instructors may drop a postponed problem set from their grading schema. Others may apply the weight of a missed midterm exam to the value of their final exam, or assign a comparable written assignment, or give an oral make-up exam. Whatever the accommodation, the expectation is that all students who received an extension for that same assignment are accommodated in the same manner.

It is important for instructors to know that their authority to give permission to make up late or missing work does not extend beyond the end of the term. Permission to submit work still incomplete at the end of the term may be granted only by a student’s residential college dean. See Work Incomplete at the End of Term.