Reporting Absences
The approach of Pathfinders has been to increase academic performance, retention and graduation by emphasizing the importance of regular class attendance. The best early indicator of freshmen with academic problems is missed classes. Your assistance is essential in enabling Pathfinders to help students succeed at MSU. We are more likely to help freshmen if we can intervene early in the semester.
Our contact with students is intended as a “wake-up call”. We emphasize the need for self-motivation and personal responsibility in a college environment that is vastly different from high school. We do not function as “attendance police”. With the help of Residence Hall Academic Assistants, we will make personal contact with the students you report. In a positive manner we will make three points to students:
- Attending class regularly is virtually essential for freshmen academic success.
- A freshman missing classes is often an indicator of academic difficulties.
- Please talk to your instructor if you are having any academic problems.
Reporting absences is easily done via Banner. Our goal is identifying quickly the freshmen who have two or more absences in a class. Although weekly recording of absences is preferred, at a minimum we need updates on absences on or before each of these dates:
- August 26th
- September 2nd
- September 16th
- September 30th
After midterm, please use your discretion to report further absences.
Procedure for Recording Absences in Banner:
1. Log on to Banner with NetID and Net Password.
2. Click on “Banner” from the alternatives of Main, Campus, Classroom, Office, and Banner.
3. Under Grades and Absences, click on Absence Reporting.
4. Enter subject, course number, and section number.
5. Update absences on your class roster (boxes should display cumulative absences).
With the absence reporting link in Banner you can either manually input absences or copy and paste absences from a delimited file.
The manual input option allows you to change the number of absences either by typing in each student’s cumulative number of absences or by using the arrows to increase or decrease the number of absences.
The copy and paste option allows you to simply copy and paste the data from your delimited file or spreadsheet, such as excel. Two data items are required for the copy and paste option, the students NetID in the first text area and the number of absences for the student in the second.
1. You must first enter how your data is delimited (comma separated, space separated, tab separated, etc.),
2. Next, copy the data from your data file and paste it into the text area in banner.
3. Lastly, click on the submit button.
If you have made a mistake you can copy and paste the information again or manually make changes to the number of absences.
Procedure for Online Classes:
Banner class rolls may be used to report lack of progress for online classes. By entering a “2” for the student in Absence Reporting section, Pathfinders will be made aware of a lack of progress on the part of a freshman.