Observance of Religious Holidays
National Louis University is committed to respecting cultural and religious diversity. Therefore, faculty members and students should make reasonable efforts to provide alternative means to meet academic requirements when conflict arises between religious observances and those requirements. Whenever feasible, students should be given an opportunity to make up, within a reasonable time, any academic assignment that is missed due to individual participation in religious observances. Similarly, faculty members also retain the right to religious observance and, therefore, faculty members may reasonably alter the traditional schedule of class meetings, assignments, and other academic events.
Procedure
Faculty should inform students at the beginning of each course that it is the student’s responsibility to inform the instructor of any intended absences for religious observances in advance (e.g. prior to the end of the 2nd class session) and must allow this notification to occur in a convenient and confidential manner. Faculty should remind students that prior notification is especially important in connection with examinations (in-class and take-home) and other major course requirements. Proper accommodation requires the student to complete the entire course and, therefore, does not include the elimination of a portion of the course material. Faculty members need not consider extended travel in order to accommodate religious observance.
Though faculty members create their syllabus in their own language/style, the following paragraph, or one containing equivalent information, should be added to each course syllabus.
“If religious observance will cause a student to be absent from class or otherwise affect his or her ability to complete academic assignments, he or she must notify the instructor in advance and make necessary arrangements to complete the entire course.”
If faculty must alter classroom expectations and assignments due to their own religious observance, they must give students advanced notice of at least one week and make accommodation for the additional conflicts these changes may cause. Such accommodations may include altered assignments, deadlines and activities and should be included in the syllabus where possible.