Do you think a college professor has the right to do this?

[Katy Belle]

I had more than one college class that they LOCKED the door at starting time. Late was not an option, for ANY reason.

 

[bgirldeb]

She was disrespectful to the professor and inconsiderate of the other students by being late on a regular basis. Sounds like the professor had enough of it.

Her response of refusing to leave shows further audacity and should embarrass her more than the professor calling her out on it in front of the class.

All could have been avoided by addressing the problem with the professor when her schedule changed.

 

[marlynnp]

Ah well, when she started class her hours were different. This has been for the last 4 weeks. I have no idea what the syllabus says, and she made no mention of it.

My thoughts are that she is an adult woman, with adult responsibilities, doing all she can to further / improve herself. It isn't like she is an 18 year old kids who is a wiseguy. In her shoes, I do believe I agree with what she said, entirely. Plus, she paid the money, so she's supposed to get taught.
BTW, this is a community college class we are talking about, not Ivy League or anything. To me, it just sounds like a professor that is too full of himself.

You know what, so did everyone else in the room. And what makes you think any of them are happy to have the class disrupted? If I were another student I'd be pretty darn annoyed and I'd be complaining to the professor or administration if someone was habitually late and causing a disruption.

 

[momrek06]

Not ONE person here said that they were perfect. Not a single one.

You came here asking for opinions on the situation and you got them. Don't like them? Then you shouldn't have asked us our thoughts to begin with. It's a crap shoot when you ask what people think.

And, if you only wanted support for your niece and her actions, you should've posted that you only want to hear from people who agree with you.

Umm, I think BCB has left the building.

 

[bgirldeb]

You know what, so did everyone else in the room. And what makes you think any of them are happy to have the class disrupted? If I were another student I'd be pretty darn annoyed and I'd be complaining to the professor or administration if someone was habitually late and causing a disruption.

This could very well have happened.

 

[Uncle Remus]

Umm, I think BCB has left the building.

 

[EstherS]

I am 37 going to school full time with a child at home and working two part time jobs. My teachers at the beginning of the semester told us that if you are more then 10 min late it is considered an absence. Also if we are to miss class we have to have a doctor's note. Now the professors will work with you if you talk to them before hand.

example - My DD has a medical condition and I need to have my cellphone on me if there is an emergency. My one professor wanted us to turn cell phones off for his class, he actually prefers they were left in your car. I spoke with him about it the first day and he agreed to let me leave mine on vibrate. I leave it in my pant pock and if it was to ever ring I will just get up and leave class to answer, which he doesn't have a problem with.

 

[happygirl]

I think this is s Dis first, almost everyone in this thread agree

 

[CurlyGirl]

I think this is s Dis first, almost everyone in this thread agree

Well, except for the OP ...

 

[15isto2]

Regardless of turning up late I think the person leading the class needs to learn some communication skills.

 

[Becky2005]

I don't know if Professor was within his rights but I'm thinking so.

However, I agree with the she should have notified the professor and since she didn't, then the Professor has no way of knowing what the issue is (he's not a mind reader!).

I took a college class after I quit my full-time job and was exploring what I wanted to do when I grew up. The problem came when final exams came -- it happened to fall at the same time one of my children's bigger school events did (I didn't know ahead of time they would conflict with timing like they did). It wasn't something I was going to skip for my kids, so I talked to the professor ahead of time about the issue and see if we could work something out as soon as I realized there was a problem. We worked it out. If we hadn't, I was fully prepared to take any consequences of my actions.

 

[CurlyGirl]

Regardless of turning up late I think the person leading the class needs to learn some communication skills.

Why would the prof. need to learn communication skills? The niece, yes, for not talking to the prof. about the issue. The prof.? Not so much.

 

[Crankyshank]

I, like many others, attended college nights while working full time. Currently I'm working while attending 2 masters programs. I say this because I know the situation presented in the OP - I have found myself having to go to class late because of work, or also because off conflicts with my earlier class (once a week I have a late afternoon and early evening class).

Never would I have found myself in the OP's situation. As soon as I found out there was even a possibility of me being late to class I would email both my professor and a classmate. Emailing a classmate served as a backup notification in case the professor didn't get my email and also to ensure I would have notes from the 10 minutes I missed. I've never had a problem or been asked to leave class because of lateness because I took great care to make sure my professors knew I took the class seriously.

If my attendance was going to be delayed for more that one or 2 weeks, I would speak to my employer and explain that I have a class on those nights and I either couldn't stay late or would have to leave by 6:45 instead of 7pm in order to ensure I was on time for class.

Your niece was seriously remiss by not communicating to the professor the very first time she was going to be late. Not only is showing up late distracting to everyone in that class, it's also disrespectful to the professor and her classmates.

 

[Pigeon]

Of course the professor can do this. It's very disruptive to have students arrive late.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I have had several classes with a tardy policy in college. I have had many that did not.

For the ones that did, if we had an ongoing legitimate issue, we had to notify the professor at the start of the semester and any tardies related to that legitimate issue would be excused. But we had to let the professor know.

One class--the proximity between it and my class prior was a tight squeeze. If there was a downpour, I would be late. This was excused. The whole semester, I was only 1 minute late once--but I usually ran to class.

I had one class that occurred while I was working FT. My grade was dependent upon being in class. While I would be excused if I was occasionally tardy due to a parking issue for the time of day I had to pop on campus, a regular habit would have been penalized. I coordinated with my bosses to allow time to do this class--but without a parking spot, it was hit or miss on getting to class on time. However, I willingly scheduled my life with that in mind and was ready to accept any consequences.

Being perpetually late would have been a very big problem due to the nature of the class.


IMHO, the professor gets to decide their tardiness policy. If they feel the first 10 minutes are important, the student doesn't get to cry foul b/c they cannot participate fully in the class.

 

[ChrizJen]

The legal right? Possibly. What does her syllabus say?

ETA... If I was going to be 10 minutes late to every single class, I would have talked to the professor about it a LONG time ago.

Exactly this. If there's something in the syllabus that states that tardiness will not be tolerated, then she's out of luck unless she worked something out with the instructor at the beginning of the semester. I would be peeved too if I were teaching a class and the same person was always 10 minutes late coming in. But as I said, most instructors are reasonable. If she had talked to him about it in the very beginning, she'd probably be OK.

 

[wvjules]

I can't wait for her to show up late to class this Thursday. That should be fun!

 

[marie1203]

He had the right to kick her out of class. I think your niece handle the situation poorly by saying she won't leave unless security or the dean is called I think she might had made the situation worst. I do not think making excuses by she was late is ok bottom line it doesn't matter why she was late. She should have talked or email him about it.

 

[tlbwriter]

I can't wait for her to show up late to class this Thursday. That should be fun!

Too bad we probably won't hear what happens.

 

[Missy1961]

Too bad we probably won't hear what happens.

So true, especially if the professor is correct, as most of us think he was.