Religious Observances

Accommodations for religious observances

Indiana University respects and protects the rights of all students to observe their religious holidays. Instructors must make a reasonable accommodation when a student must miss an exam or other work because of a required religious observance.

The IU Religious Observances policy attempts to strike a reasonable balance between accommodating religious observances of students and meeting academic needs and standards.  This policy requires instructors to make a reasonable accommodation when a student must miss an exam or other academic exercise because of a required observance. The policy outlines a procedure that students should follow in requesting an accommodation.

Indiana University's policy on accommodations for religious holy days or holidays for both students and faculty is available at: https://vpfaa.indiana.edu/policies/bl-aca-h10-religious-observances/index.html.

Request for accommodation

The "Request for Accommodation for Religious Observances" form must be submitted by the student to the professor no later than two weeks prior to the anticipated absence.  A separate form must be submitted for each absence and for each course. There are two ways to submit this form. You may download the form here, OR you may access the electronic version of the form and fill it out online here.

Guidelines for faculty

When planning courses departmental programs, and other activities for the academic year, it is important to remember the rich mixture of religious and ethic groups that comprise our student population. This list of observances includes some religious holy days, civic holidays and festivals that occur during the academic year, variously observed by certain religious and ethnic communities. This list is not exhaustive, nor does the observance of all the holy days or holidays require absence from class.

Please review the Schedule of Classes for additional information about the academic calendar:  https://registrar.indiana.edu/calendars/schedule-of-classes.shtml. Faculty can also refer to the 5-year calendar of religious observances.

Alternative accessible formats of the PDF documents on this page can be obtained by contacting VPFAA at vpfaa@indiana.edu.