Professors everywhere noticed the surge in urgent requests for mercy, for extensions, commonly presented days after an assignment was due or graded. For several seasons, faculty showed great patience and compassion. At length we realized that the virtue of compassion had become the vice of indulgence. Instead of showing patience, we were enabling irresponsibility. Further, when a student claims he can’t turn in a paper due to anxiety, we feel compassion, but we also know that we don’t relieve anxiety by permitting late work, we increase it, as the burden of unfinished tasks lingers and lingers.

Last January, a new professor wrote with a little conundrum. A student scored a 27% on his final, realized that he might fail the course as a result, and called the professor three weeks later to plead for mercy – a second chance – so he could pass the course. The student explained that he had been sick, his dog had been sick, his aunt had been sick, and he thought it would be enough to write a good term paper, so he didn’t really study for the final.[1] Would the professor let him study more thoroughly for the exam, take it again, and let that result stand? What, the compassionate new professor asked, should I do?

Give him the F he earned, I replied.

I wasn’t quite that blunt. I commended his compassion. I told him it’s his call, since he is the professor of record. But still, if the student earned an F, let his grade show it. There are practical reasons for this, but the theological basis is simple. God is both compassionate and just. He is merciful, but he does not leave the guilty unpunished (Ex. 34:6-7). For the Christian parent and leader, discipline is essential. We love people too much to let them think that irresponsibility is “no problem,” that every error will be forgiven and the consequences erased.

Actually, consequences rarely disappear; they simply shift to other people. In this case, student irresponsibility transfers to the professor. The second chance requires the professor to write a new test, arrange for the student to take it, then grade it, and take the necessary steps to change his final grade. The professor will be fortunate indeed if the process is completed within three hours and with fewer than ten emails.

But there are other considerations. The consequences of Covid and online education continue to rattle through the academic ecosystem. The greatest issue is the shift to an asynchronous education.

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