I have a student who failed an exam I gave three months ago and was supposed to show up for a remediation exam this week. The date was announced long in advance, and the student neither showed (all the others did show up) nor warned me. Now, she is asking for a new exam date, saying she was absent due to “medical reasons”. She produced a certificate that she was seeing a doctor at the time, but nothing indicates that it was an urgent need (rather than, say, a scheduled appointment).
How would you handle such a case? I asked the administrative staff at my institution, and they told me to proceed as I saw fit. Should I ask a more specific justification? In what form?
Answer
It seems you have the answer with regard to procedure. The question now is what you should do in terms of "fairness" or ethics.
Educators and students should approach the work from the same perspective - for the student to learn. Academics should not be punitive, nor should they be a race to the bottom between the "good kids" who do everything right and hand their work in on time and the "slackers" or "hot messes" who can't seem to get anything in on time (flanked by the excuse-makers who suffer heavily from the Dunning-Kruger effect). The most pleasurable students to teach are those who truly care about the subject matter. Unfortunately, a lot of students forget this and are instead overwhelmed by the stress of grades, lack of structure, etc.
Your best bet is to have a frank discussion with the student. Is she currently in danger of failing the class? Is she a borderline case? Whatever you do, don't assume that she's being manipulative. Instead, tell her that you would like to reschedule, but you're concerned that this might happen again. Ask her how she thinks she's doing in the class and what she would like to have happen. From there, talk options. Does she have the option to just drop the class (at most places, faculty can get around deadlines rather easily)? What is her worst case scenario? Is she prepared for the final? She should have the option to take the exam, but it might be a good opportunity to talk about actions she can take to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. Talk about learning from failure and taking measures to prevent this in the future. It's possible she's a pathological liar, but it's also possible that she's a kid who needs more guidance navigating the adult world.
No matter what, you ought to give her a chance to take the exam again and open communication about her status in your class. Invite her to your office hours to talk and tell her to email you back if she can't make it. If she fails to respond, then you have to fail her, but making sure that it's an emotionally neutral experience is probably your best bet.
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