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[quote=Anonymous]Many years ago, I had a professor who was incredibly strict and inflexible about deadlines, and I got burned. I didn't have an excuse like a serious illness or death in the family, but I was going through a really hard time personally and mentally, and just could not finish the paper by the deadline (something like 5:00 PM) - I turned it in a few hours late. He had been very clear that he'd be strict about deadlines, and reflecting back on it, I should have gotten in touch sooner and had the maturity to explain the situation, but I was also a 19-year old sophomore without the professional and life experience to know this. He did not show me any mercy at all and gave me a 0 on the paper. I got a C in the class because of it, which haunted me several years later when I was applying to law school.

Now, after having been through law school and worked in the real world in various law firms and other settings, I think it was a cruel and unnecessary thing to do. I get the rationale of preparing students for "real life," which sometimes does have hard deadlines and consequences for not meeting them (luckily I'm not a litigator), but a little flexibility can be very kind. You don't know what people are going through behind the scenes. Yes, maybe some will take advantage or push it, but to me, the good it can do for students who need it is worth that risk.

In the interest of fairness and not being a pushover, I think it makes sense to ask students to contact you ahead of time for extensions or do some grade reductions for late work (i.e. proportional consequences), but I think extremely strict policies are unnecessarily punitive. College students are just learning to become responsible adults; give them a little bit of leeway.[/quote]

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