Policy on Excusal from Assignments

In this policy, “instructor” means the person with grade approval responsibility for the course. If a student is excused from an assignment, the instructor shall, at the instructor’s discretion: offer an alternative graded assignment of equivalent weight or scale up the weights attached to other graded assignments selected by the instructor. At the instructor’s discretion, the format of the alternative assignment may differ from the format of the missed examination.

A student shall be excused from an examination or other in-class assessment in the following cases:

1. The student is unable to take the assignment due to a temporary medical condition, and the student submits the required documentation. The required documentation is that a health professional answers “yes” to question 1 or question 3 on the Economics Department’s medical emergency form, or a health professional writes a signed letter that specifies the date(s) on which the student is unable to take the assignment. (Please do not include HIPAA-protected health information in the documentation.) The student shall submit the documentation to the instructor no later than one week after the assignment date. The health professional should be a Physician, Nurse, or Physician’s Assistant, and the health professional’s relationship to the student and to the student’s family must be primarily professional, not personal.

2. The student is an in-patient in a hospital on the day of the examination. In this case, for documentation the student may use the Economics Department’s medical emergency form or may provide hospital admission and discharge records, and shall submit the documentation to the instructor no later than one week after the student is discharged from the hospital.

3. The student is unable to take the assignment due to other extenuating circumstances outside the student’s control. The instructor may require appropriate documentation.