Students have an obligation to be present throughout each term at all meetings of courses for which they are registered. In some courses, such as physical education and courses in which participation in classroom discussion is considered vital, there may be penalties for absences per se or defined limits to absences, the exceeding of which leads to the student failing the course or receiving a grade of Incomplete. These rules are set by the department or instructor.
In most courses, however, attendance is not taken, and the studentʹs responsibility is for the work covered in the class rather than for being physically present when the class is held. A student is then not penalized directly for missing a lecture, for instance, but is held responsible (in subsequent tests) for knowledge of material presented in the lecture. There are various means by which students can acquire such knowledge and thus avoid an indirect penalty.
It is harder to make up missed work if the class that was missed was a test or a laboratory session or field trip. Such makeups involve the direct cooperation of the instructor.
There is no such thing as a ʺuniversity excuseʺ for absence from class that frees a student from responsibility for the missed work. Only the instructor of a course can provide such an exemption to a student.
