“I just don’t understand why classes are mandatory if I’m paying $45,000 a year for them.”

Don’t act like you haven’t said, or at least thought it before.

Probably among the top five most prevalent questions, I would argue, of the ACU experience – Why do professors get to take attendance and penalize us for not showing up to class when we pay more for the class than some people pay for a whole semester?

I opened up WordPress to write a column about why mandatory attendance was so ridiculous and unnecessary, but after staring at a blank screen for 10 minutes, I think I might have changed my perspective (at least a little bit).

Of all students on campus, I think I skip class more than an average amount of times. It isn’t that I don’t like my classes or professors, it’s that I just have so many things I need to get done.

But I’ve come to realize maybe it isn’t an issue of prioritizing. It’s an issue of respect.

Yes, professors get paid to teach us, but they also spend hours creating lectures, grading papers (sometimes) and finding material that is relevant to the class. There are a handful of teachers who make it obvious they care for their students more than they do the class.

Attending class shows respect for the work professors do outside, and inside, of the classroom to prepare us for our careers. I know I’m not one to talk, especially given the fact that I skipped all of my classes today, but I think it’s important to be conscious of the way skipping class makes professors feel.

So, thank you to all of the Doug Mendenhalls, the Robert Oglesbys and the Lorraine Wilsons of the ACU campus. Thank you for showing relentless grace to students, and thank you for meeting us where we are to become incredible students and people.