Our third story from the trenches is the brilliant make-up exam policy of a colleague from Iowa. Here it is:

“Okay, this is a crazy world, and crazy things happen. I know. People get kidnapped by pirates, really. You have to miss an exam? No problem. You get one make-up exam. I don't even want to know what is your reason. You don't even have to tell me in advance. You don't even have to email me. Just don't show up. I'll know you're not there; I keep track. There will be one make-up day later in the semester. Show up that day, take your one missed exam, and that's it. Just remember, you only get one. Choose wisely.”

You old-timers won’t understand this policy, so I should point out that parts of the landscape of today’s higher education have changed so radically you wouldn’t recognize them. So for example, when you give an exam today, you will get, amazingly enough to you old-timers (and also, I should add, to those of today’s students who play by the rules) a nontrivial chunk of students who simply demand to take the exam at a later date. The resulting loss of time for the professor as he or she explains, “I’m sorry that your pet goldfish died (or that your cousin-thrice removed is getting married on the same morning I’ve inconsiderately scheduled our calculus exam; whatever), but there are no make-up exams”, and the student begs and pleads (and sometimes threatens), is quite often very great (and is always dispiriting). Some professors just give in and write multiple make-up exams, and basically let students take the exam any time they want to take it (hey, life is short; why fight it?). Others hold rigidly to their “no make-up exam” policy, and hence waste scores of hours bickering with students. Most of us—torn as we our by our competing desires to not waste too much of our time and to do the right thing—split the difference, and end up writing make-up exams for some students, bickering with others, and mostly just burying our heads in the sand and wishing we could return to the era when rules ensuring fairness were actually enforceable. My friend’s above-cited solution, then, can be seen, in this context, as brilliant.