Faculty Senate Approves Emergency Absence Policy

On Wednesday, March 4, the Faculty Senate convened for one of their monthly meetings which take place throughout the semester.

The meeting began with remarks from President Nowaczyk, updating the faculty on matters he is working on that are most relevant to them at present. He spoke primarily about COVID-19, more commonly known as the coronavirus and how this rapidly spreading illness could potentially affect Frostburg State University. He emphasized the importance of two upcoming Q&A sessions which will take place in order to address specific details surrounding the precautions and procedure pertaining to the virus. The first session will take place Monday at 4 p.m. for faculty and the second will be held at 5 p.m. on Tuesday for students. A campus-wide email was also sent out in order to make everyone aware of these events. Nowaczyk asserted that FSU administration is working closely with the other University of Maryland System schools to ensure the right safety measures are taken.

The bulk of this meeting was spent discussing a new piece of legislation known as the Emergency Absence Policy. At many college-level institutions across the United States, students will find there is a policy in place which outlines how absences as a result of bereavement will be treated. At FSU, no such policy existed until now. In the fall of 2018, senators on the Student Government Association began looking into the possibility of implementing this sort of legislation at FSU. Since no such thing existed, it was at the discretion of each individual faculty member to decide how they would handle a situation in which one of their students needed to be absent for unpreventable or unforeseeable emergency reasons, such as the loss of a loved one. SGA President Jenna Puffinburger stated, “In a society where mental health is increasingly becoming an issue, students deserve policies that will allow them to get through life’s hardships without being penalized. I am very happy about the outcome of this policy.” Senators on SGA worked with faculty for over two years to promote this policy.

The policy passed almost unanimously after over two years of hard work done by SGA senators in collaboration with Faculty Senate. Only one member of the Senate, Dr. Chelsea Schrader, opposed the implementation of this policy. It was determined that this policy will be available for students and faculty in two separate places, the faculty handbook, and the undergraduate catalog. Ben Forrest, current Vice President of SGA, said that “Passing the Emergency Absence Policy has been a long time coming. This is over two years of very hard work by SGA with members of the Faculty Senate. It is great that we are able to get a policy passed with almost complete consensus that will allow students to take the time they need in an emergency situation.” Forrest was one of the senators who initially started the work on this policy and saw it through to the end.

Some details of the policy include a request that students notify professors and/or the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs prior to their absences if at all possible. It also requests professors to be accommodating in these situations in the case where a student may have to miss a critical component of a course, such as a midterm. However, it does not require extensive accommodation in a case where so many critical components of a course have been missed that makeup work would not be reasonable. The approval of this policy by the faculty demonstrates notable respect for students and outlines an appropriate procedure that all students and faculty will be expected to work together to ensure.