My son goes to a Community College here in Atlanta until next year when he will go to Valdosta St. They have very strict attendance requirements and missing only a few will result in failing. I don't really like that either. Not sure if Valdosta St will have the same rules. I also don't think the athletes "job" is to go to class as much it is to pass and go to practice. They earn that schollie playing their sport just like a band member earns his with all the countless ours they practice. Unless the entire school has attendance rules than the rules for the athletes should be set individually based on their perfomance in their classes. If they are borderline than attendance should be mandatory.
Funny....in the classes I took, if you missed a few classes without a ledgit excuse, the professor dropped you. And that WAS the "general student body" which athletes are a part of first and foremost.
Cutting class isn't the bottom line. The NCAA's scholarship reduction plan will cure the low graduation rates at school's that are serious about academics and winning. Tennessee's obviously taking a novel approach in academia, "Degrees with no classes". The graduation exercises will be in the yard, just before lock down and bed check. You just know some Alabama fan is waiting to spring an academic fraud charge and the trimmings on the NCAA. If someone had gone to class, they'd see this coming! Go Big Urnge!
It all depends on the professor. Luckily mine usually didn't take roll, cuz I'd a been in sum twubble.
I always thought the professors at LSU could not make attendence required or a part of factoring your grade. However some of those humanities professor would pull that card out every once in a while. I don't think there should be a policy for attending classes unless you make every student on scholarship follow the same set of rules. While I don't think that skipping classes is a good thing but I was guilty of that during my college years. If it was raining it meant no classes for me that day. Also classes took a backseat to the Playstation college football tournament between my roommates. I seriously went to my HIST 1001 class maybe 10-15 times, just enough to keep up with the test dates.
LSU may have a policy for it's athletes, but I don't think so and I'm also almost positive there is no policy for the general student population. I heard that yesterday at LSU all the baseball players were in class because the coaches were coming around to make sure they were attending.
LSU traditionally had a "three cut" limit for all students, but aside from freshman English was it never enforced. Tennessee could have a combination geography / PE class, "Go and find your classes". That's 3 hours right there!