Harvard College Will Place Students on Involuntary Leave for Missing 2 Weeks of Class

Harvard College students who miss two weeks of classes will be placed on involuntary leaves of absence “in most cases” under a Student Handbook amendment that will take effect in the 2025-26 academic year.

The committee that drafted the amendment described it as an attempt to curb students’ expectations that they can attend classes online — a trend some faculty say has emerged in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences approved the changes during a Tuesday afternoon FAS meeting in a unanimous vote.

At the meeting, Comparative Literature professor Karen L. Thornber — who chaired the committee — argued that the new language was a clarification of Harvard’s existing practices, not a new policy.

Harvard already uses two weeks of missed classes as a guideline for placing students on involuntary leave, Thornber said.

“Current policies do not need to be changed, but we need to make some things more explicit,” she said.

Under the amendment, instructors are “not expected or required to excuse absences for interviews and extracurricular activities, including athletics.”

The amendment also states that a standard four-credit course should require 12 hours of work per week, including class time. The guideline, which was not previously specified in the College Student Handbook, aligns with the U.S. Department of Education’s definition of a credit hour.

Tuesday’s amendment adds a line to the Student Handbook specifying that “course recordings may not be used as a substitute for in-person attendance.”

Under existing policies, instructors are “generally prohibited” from recording courses unless they are permitted to provide a simultaneous enrollment option or are accommodating a student’s documented disability under authorization from the FAS Disability Access Office.

Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh said at the November FAS meeting, when the amendment was introduced, that online schooling was “at odds” with Harvard’s focus on residential education.

“An education conducted over Zoom would not be worthy of the Harvard name,” she said.

At the November meeting, Romance Languages and Literatures professor Annabel Kim said she thought the amended policies could unfairly penalize disabled students, particularly those experiencing sudden flare-ups of chronic illnesses.

But the amendment that passed at Tuesday’s meeting had not been changed since November.

The amendment “will not change our ability to accommodate students with registered disabilities,” Thornber said.

Kim wrote in an email that she was reassured when Claybaugh spoke to her after the meeting to clarify that the policy was not targeted at students who miss class because of illness, but instead focused on reducing the number of students who attempt to continue with courses while leaving campus for extended spans of time.

Still, some students said the change could prevent them from pursuing extracurricular goals.

Melody Cao ’26 — who took two weeks off at the beginning of the fall 2024 semester to film episodes of a television show and regularly pursues auditions for acting roles during the school year — said she was worried about the new policy.

“It doesn’t give me flexibility to pursue my professional career alongside school,” she said.

Cao, who is a double concentrator in Computer Science and Economics, said students in those concentrations may have an easier time catching up after a leave of absence because many already skip class and watch the recorded lectures later.

“It’s really not that much of a difference,” Cao said.

“I think that would be a little bit different for something like an English major, where heavily in-person experiences are what make up the majority of the curriculum,” she said.

An FAS spokesperson declined to comment on student criticisms.

Ron N. Nachum ’26 said he occasionally missed his CS classes to attend conferences but caught up with recorded lectures. Though he was sometimes “a little bit hesitant” to pursue start-up opportunities, Nachum decided to officially take a leave of absence his junior year. His artificial intelligence startup recently raised $8.7 million in funding.

“The four-year structure of college is definitely not something that needs to be standard for everybody,” Nachum added. “So I think definitely if it was stricter, it’d be sad to see people take less risk, because I think there’s so much cool stuff to do.”

Pranav Ramesh ’26 similarly took time off to attend hackathons and start-up conferences. Ramesh said the new policy will discourage students from pursuing entrepreneurship opportunities.

“The whole point of a liberal arts education is that, yes, you do engage in classes, you engage in thoughtful discussions and all that,” he said, “but at the same time, at Harvard, you can do anything, right? And so you should be exploring.”

Still, Ramesh said, he thought the new policy would be more fair to professors, who expect students to participate in classes.

Tomoki Matsuno ’25, who took two weeks off to attend COP29 — the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference — said he had initially anticipated some difficulties catching up with missed lectures.

“But given one of the classes gave me an option to attend on Zoom, I think overall it was not as stressful as I initially imagined,” he said.

Thornber and her fellow committee members wrote in a report proposing the amendment that they were sympathetic to students’ reasons for long-term absences — such as pitching a startup to investors, shooting a television pilot, competing in the Winter Olympics, or returning home after a family crisis.

But, the report argued, students anticipating spending their semester off-campus should take voluntary leaves of absence, rather than try to complete coursework online.

“An extended absence, whatever the cause, will necessarily interfere with their education,” the report’s authors wrote.

—Staff writer Maeve T. Brennan can be reached at maeve.brennan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @mtbrennan.

—Staff writer Angelina J. Parker can be reached at angelina.parker@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @angelinajparker.

—Staff writer Tilly R. Robinson can be reached at tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @tillyrobin.