Policy on Absences

Below are the policies on accommodation for verified absences adopted by the Department of Biological Sciences. These policies are the default for courses administered by us. They apply unless a different policy is stated explicitly in the syllabus for a course. Voted on 12/02/2024. Effective starting Spring 2025.

Verified vs. unverified absences

The NJIT attendance policy expects that students will attend all lecture classes, laboratories and recitations. Absences are unverified until documentation has been submitted to, and approved by, the Office of the Dean of Students (ODoS), which should be done in a timely manner. The ODoS will then notify the instructor. Do not submit any documentation directly to your instructor.

  1. There will be no make-ups or other accommodations for unverified absences.


For verified absences, the ODoS says this: “Please note that our office only verifies documentation, and it is at the discretion of your professor(s) or their department's policy to provide any accommodation.”

Short quizzes and other graded in-lecture activities

  1. There will be no make-up assignments for activities such as short quizzes and active learning assignments that take place during lectures, whether or not the absence is verified.

Mid-term and final exams

  1. If a student has a verified absence from an exam, the instructor may, at their discretion, either a) administer a make-up exam, or b) provide an alternative as described in the course syllabus.

Labs

  1. For logistical reasons (space, equipment), missed labs cannot be made up in the same semester.
  2. Some labs require a safety briefing or other important instruction at the beginning of the lab time, such that it is not admissible to allow students to join late. For this reason, instructors may, at their discretion, refuse to admit a student who arrives late (as defined in the syllabus) for a given lab. In that case, late arrivals to the lab will be counted as an unverified absence, unless the ODoS approves documentation explaining the reason for lateness. Consult your syllabus for any lateness policy.
  3. Students who miss labs for unverified reasons are at risk of receiving an F for the course. Consult your course syllabus for the policy on unverified absences.
  4. For students who miss up to three labs with verified absences, the instructor may choose to assign alternative graded activities, calculate the final grade based on just the labs that were attended, or some combination of the above. Consult your syllabus for details.
  5. A student missing more than three labs, even if all are verified, cannot pass the course in that semester. There are then two options to avoid an F grade:
    1. If appropriate, an Instructor may offer an Incomplete grade on the condition that, if the course is offered at NJIT in the following semester or summer, the student will, without needing to register, retake only the missed, verified labs and complete any assignments. Their grade will then be recalculated and the Incomplete resolved. The decision to take an Incomplete must be made before the end of the semester in which the labs were missed, and the labs must be made up by the end of the following full semester, as per NJIT’s policy. (Labs with unverified absences cannot be made up.)
    2. If the above option is not possible, the student can withdraw (if the deadline has not yet passed). If the lab is required for their program, they will need to register for it in a future semester.