I agree that absences should not be taken as seriously as they currently are. The small community-style classes that Rollins has to offer are valuable and hard to come by in today’s university system. I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want to capitalize on the benefits and personal attention of professors who can actually learn names and differentiate between different students’ personalities. But I do think that some of the absence policies are unnecessarily extreme. I had one class where your letter grade dropped for every absence after the first one. That is too much. If a student is able to actively participate inside the classroom and with strong outside assignments without perfect attendance, that should be to their credit.
I do not think that graduation from Rollins should require a global responsibility course. I know that Rollins prides itself on producing responsible leaders and global citizens but not all of its students share these same values. I am not looking to become a global citizen. Globalization is violent, corrosive to small communities and dependent on exploitation. Other nations and people would be best served if the “developed” world kept as far away from them as possible. Maybe Rollins should offer a course to its graduated that taught them something about resource exploitation under the guise of 3rd world aid.
