Guidance on Academic Flexibility for Student-Athlete Travel
As a founding member of the Big Ten Conference, Northwestern views intercollegiate athletics as an important component of the University’s culture and student experience. This belief is reflected in the institutional priorities, particularly delivering an outstanding educational experience for students and enhancing the student-athlete experience.
Travel during the academic year is required as part of student-athletes’ commitment to their sport. Northwestern encourages instructors to provide flexibility to student-athletes to address missed class time in ways that promote academic continuity. Such flexibility should neither provide an unfair advantage nor unduly penalize student-athletes.
This guidance is a shared responsibility between the Office of the Provost, Athletics, instructors and student-athletes.
Athletics informs instructors about athletic travel commitments prior to the start of the term for all student-athletes in their course(s). In addition, Athletics sends documentation to instructors about 48 hours prior to competitions to confirm departure times should the student be traveling.
Students are responsible for consulting instructors during the first week of the term to discuss appropriate flexibility during anticipated travel.
Instructors can choose the approach that best fits their course and student-athletes’ schedules. Options include the following, though this is not an exhaustive list. Instructors may choose how they will utilize these or other approaches to flexibility for student-athlete travel.
- Offer an excused absence in a course in which attendance is required.
- Arrange for additional assignments to be completed in place of missed class participation. In this case, the best practice is to focus the supplemental assignment on missed learning as much as possible.
- Extend assignment due dates that fall within periods of travel.
- Have assessments proctored by approved Athletics staff.
- Exclude missed midterms or quizzes from the final grade and assign more weight to other assessments or the final exam.
- Record your class sessions and make the videos available to student-athletes. (Policy on Recording Classes)
Because conflicts can sometimes arise with little advance notice, such as when a student-athlete is added to a travel roster or qualifies for an event, or when television broadcast partners change competition schedules, instructors should be aware that there may be last-minute requests for flexibility.
Final decisions about the ability to offer flexibility are left to the instructor after consultation with their Dean’s Office.
Questions about this guidance may be directed to assoc-prov-undergrad@northwestern.edu.
Dated: August 19, 2025