ACADEMIC AFFAIRS OVERSIGHT
Responsibility for academic misconduct is primarily in the sphere of Academic Affairs, although the Dean of Students is to be notified of all cases of academic misconduct and is empowered to institute additional sanctions if the matter rises to the level of an offense against the campus community or the student is a repeat offender.
Students who have been charged with academic misconduct are afforded multiple points of access to be heard and present their side of the matter. Different levels of review and procedural fairness have been established to protect the student. Most incidents of academic misconduct are course related and are handled by faculty and academic administrators. Sometimes a violation may be tangential to a course, for example the infraction of “interference” could be initiated by a student
remote to the course(s). Similarly, if a student acquired a copy of a final exam and decided to sell it, the violation would be “facilitating academic dishonesty.”∗ In each of these examples of out-of-class academic misconduct, a faculty member or faculty administrator will initiate disciplinary proceedings.
ACTION BY A FACULTY MEMBER
The term “faculty” or “faculty member” as used throughout this document refers to all those who teach and/or do research at the university including (but not limited to) tenure-track faculty, librarians, holders of research or clinical ranks, visiting and part-time faculty, and other instructional personnel.
A faculty member who suspects a student has committed academic misconduct in connection with that faculty member’s course should inform the student of the suspicion in writing, which may include email, and invite the student to a private face-to-face meeting to discuss the matter and hear the student’s response. In the case of online courses, if a face-to-face meeting is not feasible, the instructor is encouraged to conduct the meeting via Skype, if possible. If, despite the faculty
member’s good faith effort to schedule such a discussion, the student declines to meet or does not respond, the faculty member will complete the investigation without benefit of the student’s input.
If the faculty member concludes the act of misconduct did occur, the faculty member may impose one or more sanctions, which include the following.
- Repeating the assignment(s) in which misconduct occurred
- . Completing additional assignment(s)
- A lower or failing grade for any assignment(s) in which misconduct occurred
- A lower or failing grade for the course.
- Required withdrawal from the course, with a grade of either “F” or “W” at the faculty member’s discretion, regardless of when during the semester the student withdraws from the course.
Whenever a failing grade is imposed at the end of the semester and the student has requested a review, an Incomplete will be temporarily entered on the record until final disposition. If the sanction includes a failing grade for the course, faculty may effectively report cases of academic misconduct to the Registrar by entering the academic misconduct reporting values of I* and F* on the final grade rosters. These values allow instructors to award the grades of Incomplete (I) or Failing (F), while also notifying the Office of the Registrar that such grades are being awarded because of academic misconduct. In this case, the Registrar will ensure that the grade of “F” will not be removed from the transcript for any reason. The I* and F* values will be reflected on the academic record as I and F, respectively.
