Attendance Accommodation FAQ's

Instructors should discuss their attendance policy with the student and then work with the student to discuss options for how (and the extent to which) the accommodation can be made. These accommodations should emerge from conversations between the student, the instructor, and (when necessary) the staff in the OALA office.  The professor should make sure that the student fully understands his/her responsibilities as it relates to the course, so that the student can make an educated decision as to whether or not they can be successful in the course. Once the instructor and the student have made decisions on how the accommodations will be made, instructors need to do nothing further than make the accommodations.

Students must communicate in a timely fashion with instructors about any absences that are due to the disability. Notification to the instructor must take place prior to (or no later than 24 hours after) each absence. In addition, students who fail to communicate in a timely fashion with their instructor regarding absences will not be entitled to an accommodation.

Any faculty member who determines that no attendance accommodation is possible in his/her class may make such a proposal in the following manner. He or she must provide information regarding any established attendance policies for the class, the importance of attendance/participation to the learning process, and how attendance relates to the curricular integrity of the course to the appropriate Department Chair. If the chair agrees with the professor’s conclusion that accommodation is not possible in that particular course, the Chair will notify OALA and OALA will then notify the Dean (or his/her delegate) and the Provost (or 2 his/her delegate) that the professor would like to request that his/her class be exempt from providing the accommodation. If the exemption is granted, the University will work with the Department Chair and the student to explore whether other reasonable accommodations are available to the student for the course.

No, this is not a new accommodation. The “attendance accommodation” was formerly known as the “consideration of absences” accommodation. The document was revised during the 2012-2013 academic year to provide further clarification and to provide an additional option for faculty who would like to propose that the accommodation is not possible in their class.

Students who have been diagnosed with one of the following medical conditions might be eligible to receive the attendance accommodation:

• Cancer
• Epilepsy
• Migraines
• Narcolepsy
• Crohn’s Disease
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Panic Attacks
• Bipolar Disorder

For students diagnosed with one of these conditions, faculty and staff at the university are required by law to work with each student to make reasonable accommodations based on the documented disability.

When determining if a student is eligible to receive the “attendance accommodation,” OALA staff evaluate each student’s request in detail to determine whether or not the student has provided sufficient evidence that the attendance accommodation is justified.