With exam week quickly approaching and swine flu still lingering in the air, students are encouraged to communicate with their professors if they are ill, and they are strongly discouraged from fabricating false excuses to avoid taking an exam.

If students know they have swine flu or are ill with some other disease, they should communicate with their professor ahead of time to agree upon the proper course of action, Dean of Students Lori Berquam said.

While it differs by department, course and even professor, students who are unable to attend exams may receive an incomplete or may also be granted the opportunity to take the exam at a more convenient time.

“All of the professors have been asked to be especially compassionate and lenient due to the high amount of illness,” Berquam said.

Although students are encouraged to reschedule their exams if they fall ill, professors and administration greatly discourage false excuses students may generate to get out of taking an exam or to explain why they missed the test.

Producing a false excuse is an ethical decision for the student and it is a decision that is not indicative of the type of students that attend the University of Wisconsin, Berquam said.

“I’ve taught thousands of students, but I don’t recall any student who’s missed an exam and then tried to offer an excuse, let alone a winning one,” said David Zimmerman, UW English professor.

Leslie Bow, UW English professor, agrees, saying the high level of responsibility found in UW students decreases the number of cases in which students provide their professors with artificial excuses.

Bow added students who accidentally sleep through their exams are very often mortified and take immediate action to remedy the situation.

Since students attend the university for educational purposes, missing an exam will in many cases result in failure of the course and will greatly impact their credibility as a student and their possibility for a professional career, Berquam said.

Mathematics professor Joel Robbin said it is vital that students learn to be honest because we do not want to foster a campus society in which lying is acceptable.

“It is sometimes difficult to know if a student is really sick, if his or her religious convictions really prohibit exam taking at certain times or if a family crisis is really as serious as is claimed, yet I prefer to accept a student’s excuse at face value,” Robbin said. “I feel that we are all diminished when a student lies.”

Professors place trust in their students because even the most outrageous excuse could be covering for some real crisis or trauma, said UW history professor Nan Enstad.

As long as students communicate with their professors early and provide solid and true rationale for missing an exam, the situation is completely resolvable and an agreement can be reached, Berquam said.