Reply #16: I'm a former academic

[Lydia Leftcoast]

and I always allowed students the opportunity to make up work if they had a reasonable excuse AND if they had been good students throughout the term. I was not at all sympathetic to the goof-offs and flake-outs.

For example, I had a student who just disappeared in the middle of spring semester for two months without explanation before, during, or after, other than an off-handed, "I was busy." I flunked him with no regrets.

However, when one of my most hard-working students injured his right arm severely in a freak accident two weeks before finals and presented me with doctor's notes and dean's notes, I gave him the option of skipping the final and just taking the grade he had going in. He was a graduating senior, he'd been an excellent student all year, and he didn't demand special treatment, so that was an easy call.