I'm teaching a module on employee handbooks in my Labor/Employee Relations class and decided to use the policy of how long students have to wait in class if their professor is late as an example. What I found out is that there isn't any agreement. Students answered anything from five minutes to 20. Some told me that it depended on rank, with less time for adjuncts and longer time if the professor has a Ph.D. One administrator told me he had never been able to locate a formal policy and went on to say, "If I were a student, I would be sure to be the last one to leave, however long the rest of them waited."
Drake University actually has a written policy in their faculty handbook: "If more than 10 minutes late, the instructor may not penalize the students for disbanding."
Does your school have a formal policy? What is the urban legend on length of time students must wait at your university? I remember in my doctoral program that our entire class waited an hour for a professor to show up (it was a three hour class and I think we would have waited the entire class period!)
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