Visiting Pickens Health Center for an excuse to get out of class may become a thing of the past if the University adopts a recent proposal by the Honor Council.
The proposed system would require students to write a note to their professors and dean explaining their illness to be excused. Currently, students must provide a doctor's verification of illness.
"[The issue] is something that's been on the Honor Council's plate for a couple of years," said junior Dave Chokshi, chair of the Honor Council. "[It's] a concrete proposal to institute in place of the dean's excuse system." He said the Honor Council took up dean's excuses because it is an issue that affects every student.
This is not the first time the medical excuse policy has come under fire, nor is it the first time the University has reviewed the policy. One critic of the system is Dr. William Christmas, director of the Student Health Services.
Christmas said the system is inefficient, forcing students who would not otherwise have visited Pickens to do so and creating unnecessary paperwork. Moreover, he said, many students trying to get a medical excuse do not come to the health center until after they have recovered, leaving doctors in a difficult position.
"We believe our patients," Christmas said. "[Deans] want us to make a judgment [of how sick a student is]. That's a very hard judgment to make."
Christmas has urged the policy change for a number of years. In 1998, he wrote an article for the Journal of American College Health called "The Medical Excuse Game as It Is Played at Duke University" as well as a letter to The Chronicle, arguing the current policy conflicts with the honor code.
"If we have an honor code, why do we have to have this stupid system?" he said.
Chokshi hopes the policy will make the honor code more tangible for students. "One of the reasons we don't have the benefits a true honor code school would have is that it hasn't been inculcated into our culture," Chokshi said. "[Medical excuse's are] an in-your-face way of showing [that]."
The proposal would trust students to be honest about when they are ill and unable to attend class.
"A corollary is that if a student is found to have not been ill, the student comes up for the judicial process," said Judith Ruderman, vice provost for academic affairs and administrative services. "There's an element of responsibility on the part of the students."
Chokshi, who said he believes students will be able to handle the responsibility, said he had shared a draft of the proposal with the Dean's Council earlier and received a favorable response.
The plan has already been discussed by the Academic Integrity Council and will also be discussed at meetings of the Arts and Sciences and Engineering Councils.
"Judging from the discussion on the Academic Integrity Council, it will still be a controversial proposal," said Ruderman, chair of the Academic Integrity Council. "I personally like it, but then I teach small classes and I know the students."
Ronald Witt, chair of the Arts and Science Council, said the group will conduct joint sessions with the Engineering Council in April and May, the first to discuss measures the Academic Integrity Council presents and the second to vote on whether to approve the measures.
"The Honor Council is a student organization, so I would find it unfortunate if... this proposal didn't work out in some way," Witt said, cautioning that he cannot speak for the faculty without a group discussion.
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