ASMSU’s Academic Assembly passed a bill Thursday night to recommend a change to MSU’s excused absence policy to consider cases of grief or bereavement.
Currently, only university-affiliated events count as excused absences on the campuswide level. The faculty handbook recommends professors be sensitive to religious observance requests. Excused absences due to illness or emergencies — including a death in the family — are left to the discretion of professors.
ASMSU is MSU’s undergraduate student government.
ASMSU Provost Zach Taylor said the effort to create a grief absence policy came out of conversations with students who had faced the choice of not attending a loved one’s funeral to take an exam or skip an exam.
“Really, the university is putting students in a situation where they can’t win either way,” he said.
Zeina Bazzi, an international relations and comparative culture and politics junior, was personally affected by the current policy two years ago when she found out her 17-year-old cousin had passed away after a longtime illness. The funeral was scheduled for the next day — the same day Bazzi had a math exam.
Bazzi said she emailed her professor, but he would not let her make up the exam she had missed after she chose to attend her cousin’s funeral.
She did not get credit for her exam and failed the class.
“If (students) can’t emotionally cope with (a death), how do you expect them to do OK in school?” Bazzi said.
Bazzi said choosing to attend the funeral rather than take an exam had an adverse effect on her academics.
“If you look at my (grade-point average then) and my GPA now, you can tell something was wrong,” Bazzi said. “Students shouldn’t be punished grade-wise because someone close to them dies.”
Taylor said a policy recently implemented at Purdue University would serve as a good model for MSU’s policy.
Purdue’s policy, which was passed in April and first implemented this semester, excuses students to attend the funerals of family members and allows them to make up assignments or exams missed.
As of mid-October, 93 Purdue students have used the policy, said Purdue University Student Government President Brett Highley.
“It’s certainly being used quite a bit, which is great to see,” he said. “But I’m not happy it’s so high because obviously there’s a lot of students dealing with it.”
Taylor said ASMSU’s bill is expected to be introduced into the Academic Governance system next month, where it will be discussed in various governance committees. Passing the bill could take years, but Taylor hopes the bill will be approved by a committee by the end of spring semester.
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