Carpe Datum

How long to you keep your gradebooks? You might be able to estimate from when assignments stopped being turned in, exams stopped being taken, etc., assuming any were done at all, of course.

I guess I should check with my current institution and see what their record-retention policy is.

Is it worth putting a note in the opening Syllabus? "This class does not measure attendance. As a result, I will have no way of knowing when you stop coming to class and so if you fail out I will not be able to tell the government when you stopped attending unless you have made the effort to connect with me in such a way that I know you have been here."

I make clear that I don't require attendance for lecture (though I do for the lab), but I don't mention the Big Brother angle. Maybe I should. Maybe that's a question for people like the Provost, as well.

I get maybe one or two per semester, and I don't take attendance. So what I do is look up the date of the last test they took (or the first test if they took no tests) and tell the powers that be that I can only confirm that the student didn't attend from that date forward.

I don't bother putting anything like that in the syllabus. I'm sure when the student gets the loan, he or she has to sign some sort of waiver indicating the existence of this rule, etc. It's not really an issue between me and the student but between the student and the scholarship provider.