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<p>Of course this is true, but whenever such a situation has arisen at my school (which has only been 2 or 3 times in the past dozen or so years), other people have pitched in. In fact three years ago a colleague was diagnosed with a serious illness at the beginning of the semester and people were truly pushing each other out of the way to take over his classes, so he would not have that to worry about in addition to everything else. </p>
<p>Of course, most of us did not do as good as job as he would have because his is a fairly specialized area, but I am sure the students did learn something, which is more than they would have gotten if classes had just been cancelled.</p>
<p>So, in my view, what is wrong is not so much that the prof has had to cancel classes but that she (and the dean and the rest of the faculty) are just leaving the students hanging.</p>