Class Attendance Policy

The students of West Liberty University depend upon the faculty, staff, and other resources. Faculty and students depend upon the class schedule for an orderly arrangement of instruction. Scheduled classes testify to the importance of ordered class instruction and the implicit benefit of class attendance for the students.

Consequently, the policy of West Liberty University encourages all students to attend classes and all instructors to organize and conduct their courses accordingly. Students should attend every class for which they are scheduled as they are held responsible for all work covered in the courses taken. Irregularity in attendance may cause a student to become deficient scholastically and create the risk of receiving a failing mark or receiving a lower grade than he/she might have secured had he/she been in regular attendance.

Instructors must distribute written copies of their attendance policy to students in their classes, their Department Chairperson, and the appropriate Dean before the end of the first week of classes.

Regularly scheduled classes take precedence over all other activities. No penalty may be imposed upon a student for failure to perform curricular or extra-curricular responsibilities that are scheduled in conflict with a regular class. All persons scheduling such curricular or extra-curricular activities shall circulate a list of student participants. This list is for the instructors’ information and it does not constitute an administrative excuse from class.

Instructors should provide, within reason, opportunity for students who miss class for university-recorded curricular and extra-curricular activities (such as field trips, debate trips, choir trips and athletic contests) to make up work. However, it is the student’s responsibility to initiate timely discussion on these matters with the faculty member of the regular scheduled class.

The Health Service does not provide students with excuse slips in the case of student illnesses. Faculty are expected to maintain student attendance records in their classes.

The Provost and the Dean of Students requests that faculty report students whose class standing is in jeopardy because of excessive absences. Excessive absenteeism should also be reported to the student’s academic advisor.

Failure to attend the first scheduled meeting of classes may result in the loss of the student’s position in those classes unless he/she has notified the instructor prior to the first meeting that he/she will be unable to be in attendance. Furthermore, all attendance policies go into effect upon the first meeting of class.

Because of the long class periods, each absence from an evening class is considered especially detrimental to good class work.