ABSTRACT
A young woman sits across the desk from me. She has a two-week old infant in her lap. We are six weeks into the spring semester. The Dean has brought to my attention that a graduate student instructor—as well as three faculty in other departments—purportedly told the student at the semester’s beginning that she could bring the infant to class provided she would leave if the baby became disruptive. Day care is not an option, as none will take the child until he is at least six weeks old. The student is new to town, she knows no one she can leave the baby with, and her husband’s work schedule precludes her changing sections to an evening or weekend class. She has to be registered for and satisfactorily complete at least twelve credit hours to maintain financial aid; this means she can neither drop the class nor fail it. University policy and the Student Handbook, however, expressly prohibit anyone not registered for a class to attend on a regular basis. Further, university policy—which both the instructor and student ought to be aware of—allows children to be brought to work or class only in “emergency” situations, and never on a regular basis. The student’s history professor is going to “home school” her independently of class. The other faculty, in another college, are allowing her to bring the child. Why is there a problem with her bringing the child to her rhetoric and composition class? Especially after the graduate assistant, herself four months pregnant, had already told the student that it would be fine?
