Although the Auburn Tigers will travel to Glendale, Ariz. to play in the BCS National Championship Jan. 10, classes will still begin as scheduled that day.
“However, students may request to miss that day of class, or may inform their instructors that they’re missing that day of class in writing,” said Ainsley Carry, vice president for student affairs. “That’s consistent with University policy, so it’s nothing new — that if you’re going to miss class, you should let your instructor know in writing.”
Carry said the absence will not be officially excused, but as long as students inform their teachers they will miss class through e-mail, they cannot be dropped from the class or released from an internship.
Professors do not have permission to completely cancel class, although they may opt to cancel the physical class and instead provide an alternative.
“For example, if an instructor says, ‘I’m not going to hold a physical class that day, but I’m going to send an e-mail to all my students telling them to go online and read a particular article, or review the syllabus or watch a video,’” Carry said. “They could do something as an alternative to class, but all instructors won’t turn around and say, ‘We cancel classes.’”
Carry said the Auburn University reviewed past decisions made by the University of Alabama and the University of Florida.
When Florida competed in the national championship Jan. 8, 2009, classes were not canceled.
When Alabama played in the national championship Jan. 7, 2010, classes were canceled from Jan. 6 to 8.
“They received some criticism for that,” Carry said.
Carry stressed the importance of an academic institution keeping academics first and being consistent in support for all sports.
“When we cancel classes for a non-academic event, it creates some side questions, like, ‘Will we cancel classes when our women go to the NCAA championship in basketball?’ Or our men’s diving team do it in diving, or the women’s equestrian team goes to the national championship — will we cancel classes for women’s sports?”
Carry said it is important to consider what is in the best interest for the majority of students.
“The University has a requirement for X number of days students must be in school to count as a semester, and when we lose those days at some point, we gotta make them up at another point,” Carry said. “We’ve got 25,000 students — about 2,000 or 3,000 might go to Arizona, so you’ve got 22,000 students who just lost a reading day, and they didn’t even go on the trip.”
Carry said the University is not liable for students who may try to rush back to class Tuesday.
“However, we do expect some students might take that Monday and that Tuesday, and they should send that communication,” Carry said. “The game is at night, so I don’t think anybody expects that they’ll be in class Tuesday morning.”
Similarly to the SEC Championship, there will be opportunities to view the game in Auburn, Carry said.
“We are in the midst of planning on-site celebration opportunities — on-site viewing opportunities,” Carry said. “For the SEC championship, we opened the arena. More than 6,000 students and fans showed up. So, for a student who isn’t going, there’s going to be a lot to do here.”
This article was originally published in the Auburn Plainsman, the student newspaper at Auburn University