In the past two weeks, many students have had to miss class to celebrate religious holidays. With Eid al-Fitr and Rosh Hashanah last week and Yom Kippur this Thursday, students have been forced to choose between religious obligations and academic ones. Though the University's tight academic schedule and the wealth of religions on campus might make it impossible to cancel classes altogether, the University and its professors should implement a formal policy to ensure that students who choose to miss class for religious reasons don't do so at their own academic peril.
New York City public schools are granted a number of religious holidays off, and an effort by the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays hopes to soon add Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to this list. Instead of designating certain days as religious holidays, Columbia allows observants to meet the obligations of their faith through excused absences. However, this policy does not always put students who have missed class for religious reasons on an equal playing field. Teachers are not always aware of holidays before they take place, and students can miss notes and lectures that can't be made up outside of class. While University and state policy indicates that students may not be penalized for religious absence, there are no regulations that compel professors to bring observant students up to speed.
The University should implement a formal code instructing professors on when to expect and how to handle religious absences. It should come as no surprise to any professor that a number of students will be unable to attend class on a given holiday. The faculty handbook lists days like Thanksgiving and Election Day as days off, but it should also include a list of religious holidays that observant students will likely miss. Professors should also encourage students who miss class for religious reasons to attend a special session of office hours geared toward recapitulating a class's key points. The University should recruit temporary note-takers to transcribe a day's lesson for students who will miss a class, like it does on a semester-long basis for students with disabilites. Case-by-case leniency on assignments and CourseWorks postings—even attendance, especially in easily-made-up P.E. classes—should be strongly encouraged.
Missing class due to religious holidays is different from missing class due to illness or playing hooky. How such holidays fall on the calendar is beyond students' control, but students and professors should have guidelines for planning ahead. Professors must do their best to ensure that students' understanding of coursework isn't compromised by holidays, and the University must hold them to this standard.
