Misconduct procedures revised

If the Faculty Senate approves an updated student conduct code in February, professors will help decide punishments for students convicted of cheating in their classes. Currently, professors are not involved in the crafting of sanctions for students who commit academic misconduct.

This policy change is included in a newly revised " Student Code of Conduct, " drafted by the Office of the Dean of Students and the Student Rules and Regulations committee.

Other proposed changes to the conduct code include defining and creating sanctions for acts of harassment and guidelines regarding the amount of time that students and student organizations may use to respond to student honor code violations.

Increasing the level of professor participation in student academic misconduct cases is expected to decrease the waiting time for accused students to receive a resolution to their case.

According to Assistant Dean of Students Andrea Goldblum, " Most of [the student conduct code changes] have to do with efficiency, and it's efficiency for the students, because the biggest complaint students have is how long these processes take . and most of these changes are designed to make this process more efficient and effective. "

Currently, if a student is charged with academic misconduct, such as cheating or plagiarism, the case is referred directly to the Dean of Students office without an opportunity for students to discuss the charges with their professor.

However, accused students have expressed frustration that they did not have an opportunity to resolve a misconduct issue with their respective professors.

Until this policy, professors were prohibited from contacting any of their students who were accused of academic misconduct.

The biggest question received from students about code of conduct violations is, according to Goldblum, " Why didn't my professor talk to me about this? "

Despite this new avenue of resolution for misconduct cases, both professors and students have the option to forward a case regarding violation of the code of conduct directly to the Dean of Students office without professor involvement, a process akin to what is currently standard practice.

" At any time, faculty will have a choice of not dealing with it, " said Goldblum. " They can still forward it on, and anytime faculty can ask us to be there when they talk with the student, and at any time the student can ask that it is referred to us, " Goldblum said.

The updated conduct policy also includes a new clause that defines acts of harassment; the current policy does not explicitly allow students to be charged directly with harassing another student, faculty or staff member.

" Right now we have [a policy] that says that if you hurt someone, or if you disrupt, or if you have weapons . and we have a policy about sexual harassment, but there is no policy prohibiting harassment that may put people in fear, or lead them to not feel comfortable living in a residence hall or going to class, " Goldblum said.

The proposed harassment policy states that " placing another person in reasonable fear of his or her personal safety through words or actions directed at that person, or substantially interfering with the working, learning or living environment of the person " would subject the offending student to determined sanctions.

Goldblum noted that constitutionally protected speech, such as political speech, would not be restricted by the harassment policy.

However, she expressed concern that some students may construe instances of objectionable free speech as acts of harassment.

" I think that there may be cases where we will have to council students about the difference between free speech and harassment and give definitions . often you fight speech with speech, " Goldblum said.

" It is clear that it is not meant to have anything to do with freedom of speech by definition, and there has been a need for it...and there have been people who have been in fear, and there have people who have been distracted from study, or who don't feel safe in a lab, " she added.

Another clause in the new policy deals with student response to inquiries by the Dean of Students office.

The policy stipulates that both students and student organizations must " respond in a timely matter " to charges of academic misconduct brought before them.

This clause was put in place to allow for the implementation of sanctions if a student organization or student refuses to respond to an inquiry from the Dean of Students in a timely manner.

" Currently, the institute can interim suspend a student or remove them immediately in very, very select cases, " Goldblum said.

" For instance, " she added, " if someone is in immediate danger to themselves or others, they can also do that with an organization . One thing that has been added to that is that they can do an interim suspension if they fail to respond in a timely matter. "

This new policy also stipulates that students and student organizations that are convicted of conduct code violations have no more than " six working days " to appeal their case to a hearing panel.

Goldblum is optimistic that the Faculty Senate will favorably receive the proposed changes to the student conduct code, saying, " The Faculty Senate meeting is February 1, so if they pass it, it could be implemented immediately unless they decide to implement it at a later date. "