are professors not required to check in on students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s hilarious.

Of course professors don’t check in on students.

It’s not hilarious. It’s sad and pathetic that universities are not held to some standard to check the welfare of students.

They are adults. It's not a boarding school. It's college.

My coworkers are adults but we check on them when they don’t show up.

So in that example, the boss didn’t check up on them so in a college, it would be the classmates or dorm mates to check up.

Workers are paid to show up. College students aren't. They pay to show up. Lots of students don't go to class here and there, my own kid included.

I keep the lines of communication open with my DC. If I thought something was up, I'd call the counseling office and RA to keep an eye on them.

[Anonymous]

I know of a senior who was so depressed and anxious at a large local U. They didn’t go to class for an entire semester. Stayed in their room and occasionally went out to toss a football in the yard.

[Anonymous]

If the student says anything to the professor directly that leads the professor to infer mental health issues, suicidal ideation etc, there is an expectation (norms vary by institution) that he/she report this to the office of student affairs. Short of that, there is no expectation that they "check-in".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So FERPA and HiiPA prevent professors from getting involved in students not showing up. They are legally adults, so they cannot check on either their grades in other classes, attendance, or mental health--it's illegal!

-SLAC professor

Yet we can call someone’s family if they no show to work for a few days.

Perhaps you midunderstand FERPA and HiiPA.

I really doubt anyone from my job would call my family if I didn’t show up. I’m a public school teacher and we’ve had teachers stop coming. Eventually they have been in contact with someone to turn in their laptop. No one calls their family to report them missing.

[Anonymous]

I had a friend in law school who thought she had dropped a class but realized over 3/4 into the semester that she was still enrolled. She was freaking out but the entire grade was based on a final so she did fine.

Take heart, OP, your kid's grade might be fine.

[Anonymous]

Professor here at a small university.

Required? Not really. But we do have to report about 1 month in of someone has never attended for federal aid purposes (if a student has not attended a class they are receiving aid in, their aid is removed...this census is done for all so we do not know who received aid).

For smaller classes if someone stops coming or changes demeanor in a concerning way there are built-in mechanisms to report this to academic or social services on campus (I do, and my colleagues do). Just last week I had a colleague call me about a student who missed two classes in a row, wanting to see if they'd been attending my class, and we worked together to check on them....they resurfaced. For larger classes, it would be difficult to notice. I do have a TA check attendance once in a while to send emails to students who are not showing up or have missed greater than X classes (and I report those who do not respond to an academic unit that will check on them).

If a student lives on campus there should be RA involvement for these things. That is much more effective than professors, who are not really equipped to monitor a student for more than about 3 hours per week outside of an academic setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The modern college classroom has changed quite a bit. Kids get up in the middle of class and use the restroom. Kids drip in after the class started. Some kids leave early. Most kids take zero to minimal notes. Very few eyeballs are up and on the Professor. Most eyeballs are reading electronic devices. Students drop the class without announcement during any week up to and including the final one. The classes are always changing.

I went to college 34 years ago and when we needed to use the restroom, we got up in the middle of class and went, all by ourselves, and returned when we’d finished.

Isn’t using your discretion about going to the bathroom when you need to the very least of mature adulting?

[Anonymous]

For those who constantly ask why are SLAC's better, this post calls to mind one example.

At large state schools, classes are often large (especially freshmen intro classes). The professor (if she or he is the one even teaching) would not notice a missing student. Nor would they have the time to reach out to each of them.

Many of the small schools we visited talked about having systems in place to check on students who seem to have dropped off the radar screen (literally, they have a phone tree of administrators that professors can alert).

One Provost or maybe Dean of Students at Bowdoin told the story of knocking on the dorm room of a student who had started skipping classes. He was fine so she reminded him that it was a privilege to have that opportunity and he better start making better choices.

Since it is hard to predict how a kid will transition to the freedom of college, I was reassured to know that the schools we were looking at felt a responsibility to help manage the handoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:never heard of anyone checking on a student who wasn't in class...

If someone quits showing up to work, they will still call and ask

Not true at all. After work, my coworkers and I went to a co-worker's house because he wasn't responding to calls or emails. We found him dead in his bed. The company simply used vacation time for his absence and would have done that for weeks. They probably would have terminated him once he ran out of vacation time. If we hadn't been close to him, no one would have known.

I had HR do a welfare check on one of my subordinates...and it turns out he was in jail!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The modern college classroom has changed quite a bit. Kids get up in the middle of class and use the restroom. Kids drip in after the class started. Some kids leave early. Most kids take zero to minimal notes. Very few eyeballs are up and on the Professor. Most eyeballs are reading electronic devices. Students drop the class without announcement during any week up to and including the final one. The classes are always changing.

I went to college 34 years ago and when we needed to use the restroom, we got up in the middle of class and went, all by ourselves, and returned when we’d finished.

Isn’t using your discretion about going to the bathroom when you need to the very least of mature adulting?

34 years ago, we went quickly and came back. We also avoided it if we could.

Now it’s much more disruptive. I’ve had students answer phone calls on the way out. I’ve had students come for 5 minutes, leave for 40, and come back for the last 5 (and then ask me to go over what they missed).

You really can’t compare a classroom of 34 years ago to today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:are professors not required to check in on students if they skip class?

My DS stopped attending a class and not one email or phone call from the professor.

Phone call from professor to student? Litigation concerning harassment might follow next. Who could be bothered? Prof here. I would never dare to "call" my students. Or send emails except in respsonse to sepcifc queries. Inquiring into their personal well-being? You must be joking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know of a senior who was so depressed and anxious at a large local U. They didn’t go to class for an entire semester. Stayed in their room and occasionally went out to toss a football in the yard.

I think parents need to talk about keeping the lines of communication open, depression, anxiety, etc... before the kid goes off to college

[Anonymous]

I worked at both AU and GW as an adjunct. At both schools I taught fairly small classes. Over 2 years, once at each school I activated the school alert system because a student had stopped coming to class.

But in larger lecture classes without attendance it could be hard to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So FERPA and HiiPA prevent professors from getting involved in students not showing up. They are legally adults, so they cannot check on either their grades in other classes, attendance, or mental health--it's illegal!

-SLAC professor

Yet we can call someone’s family if they no show to work for a few days.

Perhaps you midunderstand FERPA and HiiPA.

I really doubt anyone from my job would call my family if I didn’t show up. I’m a public school teacher and we’ve had teachers stop coming. Eventually they have been in contact with someone to turn in their laptop. No one calls their family to report them missing.

I’ve had two instances where I had to call an employee’s emergency contact. These both happened years ago, before the emergency prevalence of cell phones and remote work.

1. Long-time employee on my team was a no-show. We called him throughout the morning and by lunch were getting worried. He was an older man who lived alone. A friend of his was his emergency contact and she was able to call the management of the building he lived in. He was asleep. Had been on some medication that knocked him out and he just never woke up that day until they were knocking on his door. He was mortified and so apologetic, but we were just relieved he was ok.

2. A new employee called out sick two days in a row after only her first week. On the third day, never called. We tried to contact her repeatedly and then called her father who was her emergency contact. He said she was fine but gave us no other information. Another staff member took it upon herself to call this person’s last job and she answered the phone. Apparently she went back to that job and wasn’t going to bother to tell us. Never found out why. Our guess was she felt she was over her head in the new role or they threw more money at her to return.

I can’t imagine a work environment where my colleagues wouldn’t start to get concerned and have someone reach out if I didn’t show up after a day or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So FERPA and HiiPA prevent professors from getting involved in students not showing up. They are legally adults, so they cannot check on either their grades in other classes, attendance, or mental health--it's illegal!

-SLAC professor

Yet we can call someone’s family if they no show to work for a few days.

Perhaps you midunderstand FERPA and HiiPA.

I really doubt anyone from my job would call my family if I didn’t show up. I’m a public school teacher and we’ve had teachers stop coming. Eventually they have been in contact with someone to turn in their laptop. No one calls their family to report them missing.

I’ve had two instances where I had to call an employee’s emergency contact. These both happened years ago, before the emergency prevalence of cell phones and remote work.

1. Long-time employee on my team was a no-show. We called him throughout the morning and by lunch were getting worried. He was an older man who lived alone. A friend of his was his emergency contact and she was able to call the management of the building he lived in. He was asleep. Had been on some medication that knocked him out and he just never woke up that day until they were knocking on his door. He was mortified and so apologetic, but we were just relieved he was ok.

2. A new employee called out sick two days in a row after only her first week. On the third day, never called. We tried to contact her repeatedly and then called her father who was her emergency contact. He said she was fine but gave us no other information. Another staff member took it upon herself to call this person’s last job and she answered the phone. Apparently she went back to that job and wasn’t going to bother to tell us. Never found out why. Our guess was she felt she was over her head in the new role or they threw more money at her to return.

I can’t imagine a work environment where my colleagues wouldn’t start to get concerned and have someone reach out if I didn’t show up after a day or two.

Your work colleagues = other classmates/friends at college, not the professor.

The professor is more like the divisional VP calling the emergency contact because one of the junior reports doesn’t come in to work.

I might college friends will take notice if their friend skipped hanging out and/or doesn’t seem to be leaving their dorm room vs a professor and a kid missing class.