By Alexandria Willard (OSU)
Saturday afternoon, the “Game-On Bill”, named “I’ll Show Up if I Want To”, was presented to the house. Meant to be a joke-bill, is there possible serious intention behind this?
This proposed bill, House Bill No. OSU-503, dubbed the “I’ll Show Up If I Want To” Act of 2023, seeks to alter college attendance policies within Oklahoma. The legislation defines terms like college professors, absences, and asleep/awake to set the stage for its guidelines. Castro said, “As a college student you have to juggle a lot of things like academics, work life, and personal life.”
In its core provisions, the bill prohibits college professors from penalizing students’ grades due to absences. It mandates that students attending all assigned class times with zero absences will automatically receive a passing grade, provided they remain awake for at least 90% of the total class time for the semester.
The bill outlines severe penalties for non-compliance by professors, including investigation and potential termination. It also introduces unusual penalties for students who fall asleep in class, suggesting disruptive actions such as slamming a book or public humiliation by their peers through a contest involving placing paper on the sleeping student.
If passed, this act would take effect at the beginning of the academic year 2024-2025. The proposed legislation, while aiming to address attendance policies, introduces unconventional measures and penalties, sparking debate about their appropriateness and effectiveness in managing student attendance.
When asked how he felt passing the bill through the house with the chance of it going to the senate, he said, “Going into the senate, I think the way it was before it was amended could have been passable, but I accepted some questionable friendly amendments, just because I wanted to promote the morale of the house and I believe it is important to put the house above myself in this specific bill.”