During the Spring 2025 semester, the students enrolled in one of Texas Southern University's courses experienced unfair and unacceptable behavior from Professor Dr. Carolyn Cross in regard to the incessant cancellation of class, which, in turn, had a direct effect on the students's grades in the class.

This course is Communication Studies (COMM 130), scheduled every Tuesday and Thursday at 9:30 AM. According to the academic calendar, the Spring 2025 semester was approximately 16 weeks. If students are scheduled to attend twice weekly, 100% attendance will reflect being present for all thirty-two (32) class periods. However, in the grade book for students in the class, attendance is only reflected at about 7-10 classes, which is absolutely unwarrantable. We had a few interruptions, but Dr. Carolyn Cross has canceled our 9:30 class that many times. Many of these were personal matters, which is okay. Not to mention, students have experienced their own stressors that may have caused them to miss classes outside of the ones she canceled.

Texas Southern University averages attendance into students' class grades. If we have 8 classes marked during a 16-week period, and two are present, four are late, and two are absent, the grade averages out to a 50%, or lower. Attendance in the course counts as 15% of your grade. If we were to have attended those classes instead of being canceled on, students would've had a better probability of fixing their grades by us showing up to class, and her holding class. However, we cannot do that because we trusted her to have class and was consistently canceled on since day one -- making the grade average parameters very small. We cannot change the past (maybe being late or absent), but we also cannot predict the future (if she will even have class). Myself and my counterparts believe 100% our grades would increase if the attendance was thrown out.

She was out of town on the first day of the semester. She got sick twice. We had inclement weather days. In honor of Communication Week, professors must take their classes to the panel discussions being held during class times, so two classes were already off-limits. There were even days she forgot to take attendance. She admitted to lying to us about her tire being flat as a reason for canceling class when, truthfully, she was "hungover from the night before." She also canceled because she "was not feeling well" on the first day of class, but that turned out to be false because she said she went out to celebrate her birthday. Birthdays are important, but there was no reason to lie. Then she consistently had "meetings" that conflicted with our class time; why are you having meetings during class? Is this an obligation? Ironically, as this petition for attendance was being written, an email message appeared saying that she had canceled class. To top it off, we get these cancellation messages an hour before class starts the day of or as a verbal message in class - today, we got lucky. But as you can see, we had a lot going on.

Students do not want to say she is inconsiderate or impractical, but in no way is this fair or feasible for our grades. This petition is to support the dispute of attendance for COMM 130 of the Spring 2025 semester. This is hurting every student's grade in her 9:30 class, and when it is a collective matter, also involving personal incompetencies, the least we can do is fight for our grades. We think our experience with her could be a lot more valuable if our voices are heard and fair action is taken due to all the canceled classes.

Thank you for your time.