Attendance

The syllabus is terse on the subject, so let me here explain my approach to the matter of attendance.

My first operating principle is that, as college students, you want and have chosen to be in college and to take this course, so you desire to be present for every possible moment. If that is not your orientation, I would respectfully suggest that you are not yet prepared for college work.

I also assume you are at once legal adults and morally mature persons who have the right and ability to make sensible judgments about your own schedules. Should a genuine emergency arise for which you must absent yourself, I trust you will
1) make that decision without the need to ask my permission (I am neither a parent nor a priest), and
2) make absolutely sure that you are fully appraised of what goes on in the classroom in your absence, so that you are up to speed immediately upon your return, and it is as though you had never been gone.

To the latter purpose, you should acquaint yourself with other alert students in the class with whom you can confer in detail if the necessity arises. Be prepared to buy them lunch and ask them to review the missed experience thoroughly. Again, I do not need to be a party to this; I presume on your good faith that you would be present if you could, and on your diligence in making your unavoidable absence as non-disruptive as possible to your learning and that of the rest of the team.

I will not, therefore, take formal attendance for the course, though I will notice when you are not there, and approach you if I think there are grounds for concern. You should meet with me if you have concerns about your understanding of the course material, or if your need to absent yourself threatens to grow excessive -- i.e., more than the three absences permitted by the Student Handbook.