A pop­u­lar rumor cir­cu­lat­ing at Ferris is that if a student’s room­mate dies, they will receive straight A’s for that semester.

Anne-Marie Gillespie, edu­ca­tional coun­selor and assis­tant pro­fes­sor at the College of Arts and Sciences, said this rumor falls in the fic­tion category.

Gillespie said there is no straight A’s pol­icy that is offered to the stu­dent when sit­u­a­tions like this occur. She also said this goes for any other cat­a­strophic event that might occur in a student’s life.

“Sadly, some­times real­ity does hap­pen,” said Gillespie.

In the event of a student’s room­mate dying, or any other type of related tragedy, Mary Cline, edu­ca­tional coun­selor, said the uni­ver­sity would make every effort to work with the stu­dent and their con­tract if the stu­dent made the choice to go home.

If the stu­dent does decide to stay, The Counseling Center and other ser­vices, such as the Housing Office, will work with the student.

Cline said she does recall an instance where coun­selors from the Personal Counseling Center met with stu­dents in a res­i­dence hall where one stu­dent had sud­denly died in a car accident.

Depending on the cir­cum­stance, a stu­dent might request a back­dated with­drawal of a class or classes due to trauma.

“Some stu­dents might opt for a back­dated drop,” said Cline. “It all depends on the student…those would be han­dled on a case-by-case basis by the col­lege in which the stu­dent was enrolled.”

Angie Palmer, office man­ager at the Office of Housing & Residence Life, said stu­dents will get the oppor­tu­nity to move to a dif­fer­ent hall or room if it is uncom­fort­able for them.

“Just as a cour­tesy, we offer that [option],” said Palmer. “Fortunately, we have not run into that.”

Hurdylyn Woods, assis­tant direc­tor of Residential Programs and Services, said there have not been a lot of cases involv­ing the death of a student’s roommate.

There are no writ­ten poli­cies for a sit­u­a­tion such as the death of a room­mate or any other related instance, but for cour­tesy and depend­ing on the case, a stu­dent does have the option to move.