By Alyssa Amasol
September 22, 2011
Most students assume that if a professor shows up more than 15 minutes late to class, everyone can leave and class is cancelled. However, rumor has it that if the professor has a doctorate degree, that time increases to 20 minutes. It is interesting to note that nothing about a professor’s tardiness is mentioned on the Hawaii Pacific University website, although it is expected that students are on time to class.
“I think after 20 minutes you pretty much know that they’re not coming to class,” said Torri Ishida, a fourth year student at HPU. “I feel like with today’s technology, there should be a way to alert people of something like car problems, health reasons or other emergencies.”
In some instances, professors may be running extremely late with a valid reason for their tardiness. However, it is highly unlikely for students to wait around for a professor for more than 20 minutes. A five-minute grace period is understandable but once it gets to the double digits, students start to rethink coming to class.
“I’ve never heard of this [rule] and I’ve been in academia for a long time,” said Peter Britos, Director of Media and Cinematic Arts in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at HPU. “It sounds like the five-second rule [where when you drop a piece of food, it’s still alright to pick it up within five seconds] or that kind of urban myth. I think that it depends how late you are.”
Rumor, urban myth, unwritten rule, or whatever you would like to call it, the amount of time a professor is late to class does affect the students’ learning.
Although most students would love more time in their day not spent in class, there are those who value the consistency of their classes.
“Personally I’m the kind of person that if there’s no class I’m good, but technically my dad who is helping to pay for my school would disagree and want to get his money’s worth,” Ishida said. “Ultimately I think it is the teacher’s prerogative, but if they’re not being punished then students shouldn’t be punished for being late to class either.”
Whether you have your high school diploma, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate degree, it should not change the amount of time people should wait for you. As for professors, unless a “late-wait policy” is specified in their syllabus or explained by the specific professor, it is the student’s decision whether or not to wait.
On a positive note, atleast that class was not the only thing you could do that day. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteAre post like this count as a weeks' blog you know?
Alyssa, interesting post. Two things: first, I had no idea about the PhD possibly increasing the expected wait time. Second,you write this very much like a new article. Was that intentional?
ReplyDeleteTorri Ishida has a good idea. I wouldn't want to divert resources from important safety and security programs like HPU's Rave Alert, but sending students of a class a text message when the class is cancelled would be fantastic! There have been a few times where I was waiting for a professor and the paper note stuck by the class door fell and blew away or was not even posted yet.
ReplyDeletei wrote this article for my Publication Production class and thought i'd just share it on my blog. since my first posting i did edit it though, (:
ReplyDelete