Damned if you do...

Every semester of teaching, I relearn the same lesson: your students will always be pissed at you for something. I consider myself a fairly positive and understanding prof- I try to help students as much as possible and design my courses in a way that I think fosters learning with limited stress. But inevitably, someone gets angry at me about something. This semester, with my 101 class at least, it seems that "something" is going to be my make-up policy.

I've found in the past that exams seem to cause an awfully dramatic rise in illnesses, car troubles, and deaths of extended family members (most often it's grandmas). Call me cynical, but I just don't believe that many people legitimately have to miss. Because of this trend, I've started instituting a make-up policy where I require documentation (doctor's note, etc.) It's in the syllabus, I remind students about it before the exam, and yet today, I've got a student who is all angry at me because I told him/her (s)he could only miss the exam for illness if (s)he provided a note from a doctor. I do actually believe him/her, as (s)he has seemed like an honest student so far, but I can't change the policy for one student. I tried explaining that, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

So, as usual, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. If I apply the policy uniformly, then I'm considered unfair and insensitive, but if I bend the rules, then I get stuck with a rash of students who take advantage of my generosity. Oh, the joys of teaching!