My problem: Though it's made explicitly clear to my students that I do not accept late work and do not grant extensions, I get at least 5-10 e-mails a week asking about extensions. I want to deter these emails, I feel obligated to respond, but my response is usually "See the syllabus regarding missed assignments". Dealing with this is costly in terms of time spent replying and clearing my inbox.
I make it very, very clear in my syllabus that I do not give extensions for assignments under any circumstances except limited administration excused cases and that I will not respond to requests (a blatant lie, I do respond because I care what they think of me and the course). I remind my students at the beginning and end of every class of their impending deadlines. I also regularly remind my students in class that deadlines matter and there are no extensions and no late work. My assignments are brief, and are available for over a week for the student to attempt, I don't feel my demands are unreasonable. I stress in the syllabus and in class that the way I accommodate the various life issues that cause missed deadlines is that I will drop their lowest X assignments, where X is a very generous number
My question: is it unfair of me to put a syllabus clause that specifies a minor penalty for e-mail inquiries regarding an exception to the deadline rule? Something along the lines of "Each e-mail inquiry asking for an extension on a late assignment may be subject to a Z point penalty on your overall homework grade" where Z is not an unreasonable number.
Would I be a total jerk? Is there a better way of solving my problem?
