Over the years, students at the University of Rhode Island have circulated myths that always seem to come up throughout the school year. Myths like how long students should wait for a missing teacher or what actually happens if your roommate dies in your room. Thanks to Daniel Graney, interim dean of students, these myths now have an answer.
Myth:If a professor doesn’t show up, you can leave after 15 minutes, or 20 if they are tenured.
How long students are supposed to wait for a professor is not related to if they are tenured or not, contrary to belief. The waiting period for any professor is the same and according to section 8.46.13 of the manual students are only required to wait “10 minutes from the regularly scheduled time of opening for the instructor to appear.”
“If you don’t receive a message that they are on their way, then it’s only 10 minutes and it doesn’t count as an absence,” he explained. “It’s not broken down by tenure or not.”
Senior nutrition major Molly Tumulty said that she didn’t know that was a rule until this semester. Though she said that she thinks it’s a “good rule and a fair rule. It’s nice knowing that we have that to fall back on.” Another Senior, Elizabeth Felag, said while professors here are pretty punctual, she’d probably follow other students in leaving after the allotted 10 minutes.
“I would probably wait, but if other people started to leave I might give in to the mob mentality,” Felag said.
Myth: Parking services will run your plate before issuing a ticket to cars not displaying a permit.
Unfortunately, that is not the case. According to Joe Paradise, manager of parking and transportation services, while permits are associated with license plate numbers, the permit must be displayed at all time.
“The Parking Enforcement Officers enter license plate information into handheld units to verify if a vehicle is properly registered with URI Parking Services,” Paradise said. “If the vehicle is properly registered then the vehicle must display a valid parking permit either affixed to the windshield or, if a temporary permit displayed, face up on the driver’s side dashboard.”
Students that don’t have a valid parking permit on display can be subject to a $20.00 fine, according to Paradise.
Myth: If your roommate dies, you get straight A’s for the semester and free tuition.
Many different answers for this have floated around for years about gaining free tuition for the traumatic experience to getting straight A’s or a 4.0. However, none of those are the case. The university doesn’t even have a set policy for such situations.
“We do make accommodations for people that experience that,” Graney said. “With any trauma there’s going to be some impact. So those accommodations might be asking the professors to give extended times on assignments or ask for incompletes they might not normally get.” He added that there is not set policy that blankly gives someone tuition or A’s. It all depends on the person and what the exact situation is.
“That’s interesting because it wasn’t something that was up to debate by the student body, just everyone knew and accepted it,” said Pablo Youngs, a senior art major. “The fact that it’s not true genuinely surprises me because so many people believed it and thought it was true. But at the same time, it doesn’t [surprise me] because it’s absurd.”