[Faculty] Students declaring sick for class attendance and exams

[Ashkan Ashrafi]

Yusuf,

Why doesn’t the university cancel classes. UCSD, Harvard and many other schools have already done that. How can you be sure that students are not faking their illnesses? We all know that the SASC gives accommodations to every student who requests it. Moreover, the president has said in her email:

"As a reminder, all students, faculty and staff are encouraged to stay home and away from classes and work if they are feeling ill, and to inform their instructors and supervisors if that is the case."

This message contradicts her previous policy that you also mentioned in your email. Based on this “encouragement”, students would not need any medical documentation to miss exams.

This will create a lot of burden for us to make up an exam for every single student who is trying to take advantage of the situation. The only solution to this problem is cancelling classes and moving to online modality. The current policy simply creates a chaos.

Best regards,
Ashkan



--------------------------------------------------
Ashkan Ashrafi, Ph.D., SMIEEE
Associate Professor
Director, Signal Processing Research Laboratory

Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Dr., E-410A
San Diego, CA 92182-1309
Tel: (619)594-3703
Fax: (619)594-2654 
email: ashrafi at mail.sdsu.edu
URL: ashrafi.sdsu.edu




> On Mar 10, 2020, at 1:33 PM, Yusuf Ozturk <yozturk at sdsu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Engineering Faculty, 
>  
> I have an exam today and several students contacted me during the last hour or so declaring sick and requesting to take the exam at a later time.  University send an email to all students to be conscientious  when they are sick and discourage to come to work. Similarly we are asking students and staff in our labs to work from home when they are sick.
>  
> If students contact you to ask for accommodation and an exam or homework please follow university policies.   Please use your best judgement to decide during these unusual times and when in doubt consult university procedures.  The paragraph below summarizes the procedure for a student to declare sick and request academic accommodations.
>  
> Students may provide medical documentation for temporary disability accommodations by contacting the Student Ability Success Center by emailing sascinfo at sdsu.edu. After an expedited review of the student’s medical documentation SASC will provide an accommodation letter for students to share with their instructors in order to work out the best accommodations for their courses. Students will not be penalized in any way if they request academic accommodations.
> 
> If you have any questions and concerns please do not hesitate to contact me or Theresa Garcia.
>  
> Best regards
> Yusuf
>  
>  
> Dr. Yusuf Ozturk 
> Interim Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies  and Professor
> College of Engineering
> Electrical and Computer Engineering 
> Co-Director, Smart Health Institute
> San Diego State University
> 5500 Campanile Drive , San Diego, CA 92182-1309
> Phone : (619) 594-4550
> Email: yozturk at sdsu.edu
> My schedule is available here: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/b/1?cid=eW96dHVya0BzZHN1LmVkdQ
>  
>  
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