Faculty members who are going to be absent from class for any reason must notify their Department Chair and the School office of their absence. If the absence is planned in advance, e.g., to attend a conference, faculty members should indicate how they plan to cover the scheduled material, whether by substitute instructor or alternative student work. Similarly, if the location of a class is changed, please notify the Chair and School Office in case of student inquiry.

If an absence is unplanned because of instructor illness or other emergency, such as weather conditions when the college has NOT cancelled classes, the faculty member should notify Department Chair and School Office. 

Deans’ Offices will keep a record of absences.  According to New York State Paid Sick Leave Law (Labor Law Section 196-b), passed in 2021, the College must track sick leave for all employees, including faculty, to be able to inform them how much sick leave they have remaining within three business days of a request.  The Deans’ Offices will be maintaining those records.

If a class must be cancelled in these circumstances, faculty should e-mail the class, as well as the appropriate school office personnel with any instructions for the class. (See instructions for each school below.) School office personnel will post cancellations and instructions on classroom doors and may also speak to the class personally. Please do not leave class cancellations on voicemail. Messages left on voicemail may cause the class to not be informed of the cancellation. Faculty members also should notify their department chair how they will cover the missed material at their earliest convenience.

In the event that weather conditions are challenging, but the College continues to hold classes, please be flexible with students who face travel difficulty. With local variations in weather conditions or sudden changes in weather, there may be commuter students from surrounding communities who are unable to travel to campus safely when conditions in the immediate College vicinity do not warrant cancelling all classes.