At ITP / IMA / NYU, regular class attendance is an important component of academic success. For this reason, we ask for all instructors and students in our department to please abide by the following class attendance guidelines for each program:
Guidance from NYU Senior Leadership on Student Absences Due to Illness effective 9/1/23:
1. For reasons of medical efficacy and equity, we ask that faculty please take students’ reports of illness at face value and excuse short-term absences without requiring a doctor’s note. Our hope is to avoid having students spend effort, time, and (in some cases) money obtaining documentation associated with a doctor’s visit that may be not clinically necessary nor facilitate their recovery. (For this reason, the NYU Student Health Center does not routinely issue doctor’s notes.)
2. It is reasonable to expect students to notify you if they will not be participating in classes due to illness, but you should not ask students to divulge their private health-related information. Starting in Fall 2023, the Office of the Associate Vice President and Dean of Students will remind students each semester that they must notify their instructors in the event of an illness-related absence from class. Unexplained absences can be considered “unexcused” and handled in accordance with your class attendance policy.
3. Up to one calendar week’s absence from class due to illness should be excused. Unless related to chronic conditions, short-term absences typically do not involve formal accommodations via the Moses Center for Student Accessibility. You should direct a student experiencing a short-term illness towards any alternative forms of class participation or engagement that you have identified, e.g., reviewing notes or slides posted on NYU Brightspace, getting notes from other students, viewing class recordings (if available), or attending virtual office hours. Please keep in mind, however, that some recovery period may be necessary before the student is able to engage fully with these kinds of course resources.
4. When a student needs to miss more than one week of class, or has had repeated short-term absences, you should raise an “Excessive Absences” flag in NYU Connect. When you raise this flag, you will have the opportunity to provide comments that will support meaningful student outreach. These comments will not be shared with the student, just with those individuals in the student’s home school who can support them. (Faculty teaching Stern graduate courses should contact the academic advising team directly.) The goal of this action is to ensure that there is a coordinated effort to enable the student’s academic progress in all of their courses. We also remind you that, if you become aware of a mental-health issue, you should call the Wellness Exchange at 212-443-9999 or email them at wellness.exchange@nyu.edu. You can also raise a flag in NYU Connect, but this will be received by the student’s advisor first. If there is a known time sensitivity, please alert the mental health professionals directly.
ITP’s Attendance Policy:
After the first two weeks of the add/drop period, effective in week three onward, students are permitted the following number of unexcused absences:
- For 14-week, and 12-week, full-term courses, up to two unexcused absences are permitted.
- For 7-week, and 6-week, half-term courses, up to one unexcused absence is permitted.
- For shorter term courses, (1.0-unit weekend courses, or courses meeting less than six times) no unexcused absences are permitted.
Exceeding these unexcused absence guidelines is grounds for automatic failure.
Course instructors are permitted to grant additional “excused” absences, at their discretion, provided the student has given advance notice, and is willing to make the necessary arrangements to get caught up on any missed materials and/or assignments.
IMA’s Attendance Policy:
At most two unexcused absences while you are enrolled in the course will be tolerated without effect to your grade. Any more than two unexcused absences will result in a lowering of your final grade by one whole grade for each unexcused absence. For example, three unexcused absences will result in your highest possible grade being a B instead of an A. Four unexcused absences will result in your highest possible grade being a C and so on. Six unexcused absences will result in an automatic F for the course. Two late arrivals (more than 10 minutes late) will count for one absence.
Any classes you miss due to not being enrolled during the drop/add period are not counted as absences. If you are on the waitlist for a class you should attend during this period or risk being dropped from the waitlist.
Adjustments to the above policy are made by individual faculty members based on the nature of the class, the meeting pattern, and length of the class. The final policy for each class may be found on the syllabus for that class.
FYI – this policy also lives on the general student-facing Help site here.