Memorandum 
To: Homewood Faculty
From: Paula P. Burger, Dean of Undergraduate Education, Krieger School of Arts 
and Sciences
Andrew Douglas, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Whiting School of 
Engineering
Subject: Excuses for Missed Classes

Effective with the Spring Semester 2006, the Student Health and Wellness Center
will no longer provide excuses for students who miss individual classes. In the
case of a student who is seen at the Student Health and Wellness Center for a 
serious or prolonged illness that causes a student to miss a significant number 
of classes or major academic assignments, including mid-term examinations, the 
Center will alert the Dean of Student's Office so that a student's instructors 
and the appropriate office of academic advising can be notified. Since an 
absence from a final examination is excused only in the most serious of 
circumstances, the Student Health and Wellness Center will provide confirmation 
of illness for those students who present themselves to the Center for 
treatment at the time of their illness.

This change is being made for several reasons. First, there is no school policy 
on class attendance and yet a widespread tendency has developed for students 
regularly to seek formal documentation of absences from individual classes. 
Johns Hopkins is one of the very few institutions that engages in this practice,
which seems to be at odds with the maturity and personal responsibility that we 
expect students to display and with the relationship of trust that we expect 
students to develop with faculty. 

Second, the efficacy of this procedure is questionable, particularly when 
students come to the Health Center describing symptoms they experienced a day 
or two before. Health care providers have no way of independently verifying 
illnesses from which students have recovered prior to their coming to the 
Health and Wellness Center. Judgments in such matters relate primarily to the 
student's credibility. The post hoc decisions of health care professionals are 
therefore no better informed than those that might be made by faculty members 
to whom the student would alternatively present him or herself. Furthermore, 
illness is a subjective experience and individuals can vary in their responses 
to acute but limited illness in ways that make it very difficult for even a 
health care provider to determine whether a student is too sick to go to class, 
finish a paper, or take a quiz. 

Third, the staff of the Health and Wellness Center devotes an extraordinary 
amount of time to providing this service, time that could be spent in 
delivering health care to students. The Center staff believes that the 
investment of many hours in documenting class absences is contributing to 
increasingly long waits at the Health Center.

Faculty are encouraged to state their expectations to students about class 
attendance, to address  procedures they will follow if students miss class or 
assignments, and to remind students that misrepresenting information about 
their personal circumstances to a university official, including a faculty 
member, constitutes academic dishonesty and is grounds for action by the 
Academic Ethics Board. 

Students who have significant illnesses that interfere with their ability to 
meet their academic obligations are urged to seek treatment at the Student 
Health Center and to confer with the appropriate academic advising office, 
which stands ready to assist students facing serious or prolonged health 
problems. Students will also be informed that they should notify faculty 
directly when they are not able to complete work due to illness. Faculty who 
see a pattern of class absences or late work are encouraged to confer with 
Academic Advising. 

We appreciate your cooperation.

copy: 
John Bader
Susan Boswell
Alain Joffe
Richard Sanders
Janet Weise