What's your excuse?

An excuse about a faulty alarm clock, a common alibi among students for showing up late, results in more than a reduced grade for the cadets in the IU Police Department academy.\n"We have them give lectures on how an alarm clock functions," said IUPD Training Lt. Greg Butler. \nCadets often supplement their 10-minute presentations with PowerPoint slides with diagrams to demonstrate the potential perils of clocks, including power surges and hitting the snooze button, he added. \n"Once they have to do something like that, they usually aren't late a second time," Butler said. \nMost IU professors said they've seen their share of students unexpectedly afflicted with stomachaches, massive motherboard meltdowns and sometimes disproportionate numbers of deaths in the family. More than 70 percent of these mini-disasters are probably made up, according to a survey of students performed by Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, who studies procrastination. \nThe students surveyed usually invented explanations after procrastination prevented them from hitting the books, Ferrari said. Both sexes procrastinate academically with the same frequency, and those that put things off for another day are more likely to receive lower grades and make excuses to wriggle out of tests. One positive thing about academic procrastinators, he found, was they were often very intelligent. After all, it takes a certain amount of creativity to cook up all those excuses. \nTaffy-like truth stretching, ranging from "I slept late" to more elaborate excuses, seems to happen frequently at IU, according to a small-scale survey of faculty and students.\n"A buddy of mine who's Catholic filed a document to get out of a test for Yom Kippur," said sophomore David Goldberg. "Also, I don't want to incriminate anyone, but a friend of mine knows somebody who knows somebody that can get doctor notes."\nGoldberg added he doesn't personally partake in excuse-making. In fact, he's taken every college test on time, but he had some advice to offer procrastinators. \n"I'd say to be creative. Make sure your story makes sense," Goldberg said. "You don't want to wear a cross when you take in the document to have Yom Kippur off."\nAnother student uses his boss and fiancee as outs when he's in a time crunch.\n"The best one I've had experience with is saying 'work ran late; I blame it on the boss,'" said senior John Frank, who works at the Indiana Memorial Union Back Alley bowling alley. "I just got engaged, so that works too, saying I had to go up to Indy to take care of things my fiancee actually takes care of." \nAs due dates approach, most students blame technology, alarm clocks and deaths in the family. \n"It's standard for me to get hard drive excuses. A lot of people blame problems on technology," said graduate student Megan Savage, who teaches a freshman discussion group. "They don't realize I'm not that much older than them. I'm in the age of technology, too. I know hard drives don't just blow up ... It's 'the dog ate my homework' of this age."\nShe added she very rarely accepts technology excuses, which also include e-mails that are sent and mysteriously don't arrive to her inbox. \nOther professors cited relative deaths as a commonly used excuse. Although some are obviously legitimate, the number sometimes seems too high.\n"I don't recall particularly wild excuses," said IU Political Science Professor Russell Hanson. "Though instructors are puzzled by claims about the insolvency of Social Security, given the mortality rate of grandparents as reported by students in the middle of the semester and again at the end."\nIn his study, Ferrari found 90 percent of professors at the three schools surveyed accepted the students' excuses without requesting proof. Students are more likely to lie to young, more lenient instructors, especially if they're female, he said. Professors should be understanding, but he recommended they ask for proof of the sudden mishap.\n"I'm not saying they should be overly rigid, but professors need to be flexible, not spineless," Ferrari said.\nCurbing the flow of late papers and make-up tests is simple, said a few professors who don't get frequent excuses from students.\n"To be honest, I don't get many excuses," said English professor Susan Gubar. "On the first day, I tell the students I won't accept late papers or makeup exams. Then I have them repeat it over and over, like a mantra."\nHanson said he also makes his policy of accepting little late work clear at the beginning of the semester. This prevents an inbox full of excuses.\n"I don't accept late papers or assignments for which there was considerable advance warning; it's up to students to leave themselves a cushion in case of last minute emergencies," he said. "Missed exams usually can't be made up until students provide documentation of illness, death in the family or other catastrophic events -- where 'catastrophic' is a matter of discretion on the part of the instructor"