Academic Flexibility Policy

Faculty have the authority, right, and responsibility to set their attendance, deadline and academic flexibility policies for their respective courses. Students should consult their individual faculty members’ course syllabi to be aware of and understand these policies. However, in the event of an acute crisis or personal, medical, or mental health emergency, students and faculty may consult a Student Success Advisor in the Dean of Students office or Disability Services for support regarding possible academic flexibility. Student Success Advisors are available to meet with students to discuss their situation, assess the request for flexibility, and if appropriate, recommend flexibility to faculty via a “Notification Regarding Academic Flexibility” email. Academic flexibility requests from the Dean of Students Office are intended to be short-term requests (usually 3-5 days).

While there may be unique circumstances where flexibility extends slightly beyond this time-frame, those circumstances are rare and will be noted by a Student Success Advisor. If a student’s issue will necessitate more than short-term flexibility to resolve, a more appropriate alternative may be for the student to drop or withdraw from the course and/or the entire semester. Additionally, the Student Success Advisor may request flexibility for a student and be unaware that faculty have already extended significant flexibility thereby making the Student Success Advisor’s request unreasonable or inappropriate. In those cases, please reach back out to the Student Success Advisor to make us aware and we can reconnect with the student to let them know that flexibility will not be granted and a better alternative may be to drop or withdraw from the course. To note—a recommendation from the Dean of Students office, or Disability Services office—is only a recommendation to faculty, who ultimately have the right to determine if flexibility is appropriate in their respective course.