15-minute rule myth busted

Is the top floor of the Cathedral really haunted? Does stepping on Forbes Field’s home… Is the top floor of the Cathedral really haunted? Does stepping on Forbes Field’s home plate really give you good luck on your exams? Can Dave Wannstedt’s mustache actually fight crime?

We might never know the answers to these questions.

But there is one campus legend that definitely isn’t true: The 15-minute rule.

Pitt spokesman John Fedele called it exactly that ­— a legend. Contrary to popular belief, Pitt has no policy that allows students to leave class if their professor is more than 15 minutes late.

Fedele doesn’t know the origin of this legend. “We had the same thing in the late ’70s when I was at Boston College,” he said. He never thought to investigate the truth behind it though.

He said professors decide whether or not to implement a 15-minute rule for their classes.

Professors hold their students to different standards.

Laurel Roberts, a biology professor, said she tries to arrive on campus an hour before her class begins. If she’s running late, she tries to call or e-mail a colleague and have him notify her students.

The amount of time she expects her students to stay depends upon the length of her class.

“If it is a 50-minute class and I know I can’t get there within 15 to 20 minutes of the start time, I would probably cancel class unless that day’s material was time sensitive,” she said in an e-mail.

She would reconsider canceling if the class were a 2.5-hour, once-a-week class.

English professor Jennifer Lee said she would expect her students to give her 10 or 15 minutes to show up before they left her classroom.

“After that, I would understand,” she said. “I expect my students to be on time, so they should expect me to be on time.”

Senior Janine Glasson said she had a class in which the professor, who declined to give an interview, would show up 13 to 14 minutes late every class, like clockwork. Everyone would cite the 15-minute rule and plan on leaving. But after several classes, the students knew the 15-minute rule would probably never be applied.

“It was more of a vain hope that she would be 15 minutes late,” she said.

It is understandable if a professor is seven or eight minutes late every once in a while, she said. But she has never actually applied the 15-minute rule.

Student Lindsey Kasmiroski, however, has.

It was last winter during a bad snowstorm, and she had trouble getting to class.

“We waited 20 minutes before leaving, because we all liked the professor,” Kasmiroski said.

Glasson said that her professor did arrive and kept the class late to teach the material that would have been covered if the professor had been on time, throwing off her schedule.

Fedele said professors can decide for themselves what to do with students who leave class early. But if a student leaves before the professor shows up, he or she is likely to be marked absent, which could negatively affect the student’s grade.

Glasson said she never approached her professor about her tardiness, and she doesn’t know of any classmates who did. She never tried to make a formal complaint, either.

The dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, N. John Cooper, said professors are subject to responsibilities similar to those of students. He pointed to the Academic Integrity Code, which is listed on the Arts and Sciences website (the other schools have similar codes on their own sites).

The first half of the Academic Integrity Code deals entirely with student obligations and responsibilities — including timeliness. The second half lists faculty conduct.

Part one of the faculty section lists 13 points of responsibility, which states that professors are required “to meet their classes when scheduled” and “to make appropriate preparation for classes and other meetings.”

Part two is grievance policies, which says that “any member of the University community having evidence may bring to the attention of the department chair and/or dean a complaint that a faculty member has failed, in one or more respects, to meet faithfully the obligations set forth above.”

Cooper said that if a professor is routinely late, the most effective way for a student to complain would be to go to the department.

John Twyning, chair of the English department, said he tries to monitor professors as much as possible.

“It is a University requirement for all of us teachers to have observations in class, especially for graduate student teachers,” he said, “but we don’t do spot checks on professors.”

He agreed that the best thing for a student to do if a professor is typically tardy would be to come to the front desk of the English department, on the fifth floor of the Cathedral. He receives any complaints students makes to the receptionist.

“I’ve not received any complaints of tardiness other than extenuating circumstances, such as illness,” he said.

Another, perhaps easier, way for a student to complain would be through the course evaluations.

“We do rely on student feedback,” Twyning said.

Cooper agreed.

“We require [teachers] to maintain a teaching portfolio with student and peer evaluations,” Cooper said. “When someone suggests a faculty member to be promoted, that is one of the things we look at.”

He also stressed the importance of the student course evaluations.

“I read hundreds of student comments each semester,” he said. “This is not a vacuum you are sending it into.”

So there are options for students when a professor is late, but leaving the classroom might not be one.

Reporter Megan Kelly contributed to this report.