Northern Arizona to Test Attendance Policy

If you attend Northern Arizona University, life's about to get a lot more interesting. Well, for those students who don't regularly go to class, anyway. 

That's because the school is instituting sensors to take attendance in large lecture halls starting this fall, multiple reports say. A system will detect student identification cards as the students enter the lecture hall. In turn, professors and lecturers can see attendance numbers. 

The university has already received some criticism for the system, which skeptics say is a little too Big Brother-esque for a college classroom. 

"I feel as though having students make it their own decision to go to class is part of the process of becoming mature adults," one NAU student tells the Badger Herald, the University of Wisconsin's student newspaper. 

But the school and its administration maintain that attendance is a huge part of academic success, and putting in sensors will keep students on their toes—and in the lecture halls for class. 

"We want every one of our students that enrolls in a class to realize their potential and be successful in the completion of that course," NAU Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Karen Pugliesi tells the Chronicle of Higher Education. "It's not in the student's interest for them to drop out of a course or to fail a course." 

This much is clear: Morning classes at NAU may lose some serious numbers in the fall. 

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