Students Fatigue Classes, System Investigated

If a student is weary and overworked, the Academy allows this sleep-deprived Exonian a temporary relief from their exhaustion: a “fatigue” visit to the Lamont Health and Wellness Center. Students fill out a pink card in the medical center and follow the nurse on duty to a sunroom on the second floor where tired students rest on neatly arranged cots. Although fatiguing is not a formal procedure, it helps many Exonians take a small respite from their long nights and work-filled days.

According to data provided by Director of Nursing Nancy Thompson, in the calendar year of 2017, there were 510 total visits for fatiguing. Out of this, there were 171 students who fatigued only once. There were six students who fatigued five times, three students who fatigued six times, and only one student who fatigued for seven formats.

Very few students overuse their ability to fatigue classes. Coole outlined that the procedure following a student’s overuse of fatiguing starts with noting any intersection between absences and lowered grades. Each week, Coole receives a list of students who have fatigued, along with how many fatigues they have. If he sees a student who has fatigued more than average, he digs deeper to figure out the reason. “I try to look at the big picture. I look at their overall attendance, I look at their grades, and talk to their adviser to see if anything else is going on in their lives that may give us cause for concern,” he said.

The exact origin of fatiguing is unclear. Coole said, “I guess it kind of had that grassroots genesis.” However, he attributed it to forward-thinking staff who didn’t believe in penalizing students for resting instead of attending classes due to exhaustion. “Kids were just coming in and pretending that they were sick and it was taking up nurses’ time. So now, if you’re tired, you just come in and say you’re tired,” Chair of Health Education Michelle Soucy said.

The process has undergone many changes since its origin. Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Jeanne Stern explained that Exeter has “been trying to figure out how to do this for a long time, and [it goes] back and forth.” In fact, the health center has created a new rule requiring that students leave their cellphones and backpacks outside the room. Medical Director Myra Citrin stated that this new rule decreased the overuse of fatiguing greatly. “We decided that if students needed to come in for fatigue, then they needed to be catching up on much needed rest, not doing homework,” she said.

There are many rumors as to how many fatigues a student is able to obtain without being punished. According to upper Ariane Avandi, a health center employee told her that she had fatigued too many classes and was not allowed to miss another class. The employee also told her that the deans do not recommend having more than three fatigues a term.

However, what many do not know is that there is no written policy in the E-Book regarding fatiguing. Coole said, “There’s nothing in writing that says that this is permissible. There are no controls to it.”

Some students are under the impression that their participation grade in a course would suffer if they fatigued a format. However, History Instructor Michael Golay claimed that it is not possible for faculty to know whether a student fatigued a class or simply had an excused absence for another reason. “When we put in an absence, we’re just given an excused or unexcused, and we’re not told whether it’s a fatigue,” he explained.

Biology Instructor Townley Chisholm does not have an individual policy on fatiguing; however, he does believe that if a student fatigues consistently, it can have an impact on the class. “Of course the student missed what happened in class and is responsible for making that material up...and sometimes labs cannot be re-created,” he said. “Fatiguing definitely has a real cost to the student and to the class since the person is not there to contribute.”

Golay instead believed that fatiguing has a positive effect on the students. “It seems reasonable enough to me that if you’re so tired that you can’t participate or do the reading, you need the rest. The problem is if you’re only doing it for one format, I’m not sure how beneficial the actual rest is,” he said.

Thompson believes that even without regulations, students are discouraged to miss class. “As you can see, the number of students that overuse the system is relatively small.  Therefore, the health services team does not feel it is necessary to ‘police’ the system. There are natural consequences to missing classes,” she said.

Senior Clara Lee agreed that there should be no restrictions on fatiguing. “I think that fatiguing should be open without limits because many people need it; the purpose is so that students can not be penalized for needing to miss a class and sleep if they’re very stressed [and] exhausted, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to limit that,” she said.

Upper Adrian Venzon added that rather than restricting the number of fatigues a student can utilize, adults should look out for the students and possibly find an underlying cause. “In a scenario like this, I think it would also be important to provide that person with resources through which they could try to remedy the situation, but I don’t think policing fatiguing would help,” he said.

Although there may be some students who exploit the system of fatiguing, many believe that because of this policy, students are better able to balance their sleep and work time. Upper Janeva Dimen recognized this, saying, “Exeter is really stressful,” she said. “And the biggest thing that students lack is time—meaning we lack sleep. Our health should come first, but at Exeter, that isn’t a lot of peoples’ priority. I appreciate the fatiguing system because it allows students to focus on their health.”

Prep Isa Matsubayashi agreed, adding that most students already understood the negative repercussions of fatiguing. “I think your participation grade would certainly go down if you dick or fatigue because you can’t participate in discussions,” she said. “But if you really need it, it’s good that there’s a system in place.”

Stern applauds the health center for implementing this system, albeit an ever-shifting one. “I think it’s great that we’re honoring the kids’ needs to take care of themselves at times,” Stern said.