Although the flood following the rainfall on Feb. 5 left one Marshall University student’s road impassable, the student said her excused absence form was not approved.
Marshall sophomore Lindsay Thompson said the damaged road was the only available route out of her neighborhood in Salt Rock, West Virginiaw, leading to her seeking an excused absence.
“The rain washed out my road, and considering my road was gone, I was hoping for an excused absence,” Thompson said.
When submitting an excused absence to Student Affairs, the absences fall under five categories, including university-sponsored activities, student illness or critical illness/death in the immediate family, short-term military obligation, jury duty or subpoena for a court appearance and religious holidays.
“I attached pictures of my road to the excuse,” Thompson said. “I was hoping that even though it wasn’t a part of the categories, they would make an exception.”
Thompson said her excused absence was denied.
“Marshall told me weather and transportation issues would not be excused,” Thompson said. “I’m a commuter, and this is the only road out of my house.”
Thompson was advised to reach out to Kat Smith, the director of student advocacy and success, or Lisa Martin, the director of student conduct, with further questions.
“Weather-related absences don’t go through the Office of Student Affairs,” Smith said. “That goes through the individual professor.”
Smith said should an individual professor’s absence policy not excuse weather-related absences, students may then reach out to the Office of Student Affairs.
However, Thompson said while one of her classes was canceled, her other class absence was not excused by her professor.
“That caused me to actually miss an important deadline for an assignment,” Thompson said. “It didn’t end up being excused.”
In the future, Thompson said she would like to see a shift in the categories for excused absences for the university.
“Even if I was able to get into Huntington, police were turning people around,” Thompson said. “I think if it’s a day like that, Marshall should reconsider.”
Kaitlyn Fleming can be contacted at [email protected].
