Provost’s office cites accreditation criteria
Football fans across campus, get ready to cash in your first absence of the semester. Provost Michael Amiridis has instructed USC faculty not to cancel classes on Thursday evening or Friday due to the Gamecocks’ Thursday night game against the UNC Tar Heels.
In a memo sent to faculty and academic staff Aug. 20, Amiridis said “all teaching faculty and instructors are required to meet their classes, labs, studio and other courses at the regularly scheduled times” in accordance with USC’s Faculty Manual. The manual states that if a professor or instructor is unable to meet their classes, they must notify their dean or department chair.
“Reducing the number of total required minutes of class meeting time has raised legal and accreditation questions at peer institutions,” Amiridis said in the memo.
One of the criteria for USC’s accreditation is guaranteeing a certain mamount of class hours for students, said Helen Doerpinghaus, vice provost and dean of undergraduate studies.
“We don’t even consider compromising our academic promise to students to support our Gamecocks,” Doerpinghaus said. “If you have class then and can’t go, you can tape it, watch it on TV or go at the second half. We all have our own lives and our own immediate needs, but there are other games and other seasons.”
Doerpinghaus said that the instruction not to cancel classes is in no way a lack of support from the university to the football team.
“The first part of the Carolina family is academics,” Doerpinghaus said. “All of our teams deserve our support, but if you look at their schedules, so many of them have games or competitions on school nights.”
But for some students, missing class is not as concerning as missing a season-opening game.
“I will definitely be skipping,” said Clayton Owen, a fourth-year international business student. “Tailgates as a student and games in the student section are numbered.”
Clemson has cancelled classes after 12:15 p.m. for its Thursday night game against Georgia Tech in November. Those classes will be made up by rescheduling them, teaching online or adjusing assingments, according to an email to Clemson students, faculty and staff sent by university president Jim Barker in May. Most staff members will also be expected to take 3.5 hours of annual leave or take the day off.
Clemson has avoided scheduling Thursday night home games in the past “because of the challenges it presents to academic and university operations,” Barker said in the email. Since student parking lots are largely used for gameday parking, it would not be feasible for classes to be held that afternoon, said John Gouch, Clemson’s assistant director of media relations.
This week’s game is the first home and season opener to be played on a Thursday since 2010, when South Carolina played Southern Mississippi. Last year, the season opened on a Thursday night, but it was an away game played at Vanderbilt. In 2011, the Gamecocks’ season opener was played against the East Carolina Pirates on a Saturday night at Charlotte, N.C.’s Bank of America Stadium.