Avi Davidoff was forced to drop a quiz in his macroeconomics class his sophomore year because he went home during Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year.

"I don't think it would have been a big deal to have me make it up when I came back," said Davidoff, an international relations junior in the James Madison College.

Davidoff has had at least one class every year with an assignment due on Rosh Hashanah, which usually is in September or October.

Because of situations like these, ASMSU, MSU's undergraduate student government, has created a bill to revise the current MSU Religious Observance Policy.

The proposed policy would prohibit students from being penalized for observing a religious holiday. It was proposed to the Executive Committee of Academic Council on Feb. 27. Ultimately, it would need to be approved by Academic Council before going to the MSU Board of Trustees.

If it's approved by the board, the policy would be enforced by this fall, at the earliest.

An issue addressed in the proposal is "blanket policies," which states a student can drop a certain amount of quizzes or have a certain amount of absences. In the proposal, if a student misses class due to religious observance, a missed quiz or assignment would not be counted against the student.

"A religious observance is not an unforeseen circumstance," said Matt Caramagno, Academic Assembly vice chairperson.

"Unforeseen circumstances" are cases such as illness or family emergencies," Caramagno said. He added that religious observance is not an emergency since it can be scheduled in advance.

One major change between the current policy and the proposed policy is most of the "shoulds" and "mays" were changed to "wills" and "musts," said Ralph Putnam, an associate professor of education, at the executive committee's meeting.

Brandon Sethi, vice chairperson of Academic Assembly, said this was because the current policy is not strong enough.

"It says 'I should do this, but I don't have to,'" he said. "A professor's personal views on one student or that student's religion or how authentic their beliefs are shouldn't matter."

Davidoff said he asked his professor before Rosh Hashanah if there would be a quiz on the holiday, and she said she couldn't tell him ahead of time. There was, in fact, a quiz that day, he said, and it was counted as one of his dropped quizzes.

Putnam said the ideal situation is for students to inform their professors at the beginning of the semester.

"The most important thing is to do it as early as possible. Presumably you're going to know these things at the beginning of the semester," he said.

However, the proposed policy does not have time restriction to ensure flexibility for students and faculty members, Putnam said.

Sethi said students shouldn't have to worry about making a choice between their faith or their grades.

"My faith comes first," he said. "I don't want to have to worry about missing an assignment and losing credit to do something that, in my opinion, is far more important than my education, and there's a lot of students that feel that way. It inhibits people from doing what they feel is really important beyond their education."

Provost Kim Wilcox said the current policy requires faculty to accept a student's request on the honor system.

"The assumption in the policy is that we assume sincerity when a student requests time off for a religious observance," he said.

Anyone could claim they are Muslim, Jewish or another religion and use it to get a day off of class, said Kashif Saleem, Muslim Students' Association vice president. But he added the good of the new policy outweighs the bad.

"There are certain times when the university should accommodate for the benefit of the students," Saleem said.

Davidoff said most of his professors have been reasonable and understanding when it came to religious observances, but in large classroom settings there are professors that won't accommodate.

"A religious observance policy is a great idea," Davidoff said.

However, students should not take advantage of the proposed policy to get out of class, Wilcox said.

"At the end of the day, we have classes for a reason," he said. "We don't want anything to interfere with someone's belief system, at the same time there is a value to going to class.

"So if you're just doing it to get out of class that's very unfortunate."