Reasons for Needing Replacement Assignments or Extensions

Students should make every effort to complete the assignments for my courses as they are assigned by the deadlines given. However, sometimes circumstances prevent a student from doing this. In order treat all students fairly, I use a four point test for what characteristics a situation must have to constitute a valid reason for needing a replacement assignment or an extension to a deadline. The situation must:

  1. significantly interfere with the assignment,
  2. be unexpected,
  3. be unavoidable, and
  4. be independently verifiable.
A prototypical example of such a situation is falling ill at the time an exam is to be taken and going to a physician for treatment. Here you would be too sick to take the exam (point 1), you could not reasonably anticipate that this would happen (point 2), you are not able to refuse to let it happen (point 3), and you can get a note from your physician (point 4).

Some examples of situations that fail to meet this test are:

Exceptions to this rule may be granted to comply with University policies such as this one:

It is the policy of the University to excuse absences of students that result from religious observances and to provide without penalty for the rescheduling of examinations and additional required classwork that may fall on religious holidays.