Recent Code Updates

A workgroup of faculty, staff, and students have spent this academic year soliciting feedback about the current Code of Student Conduct. The Associate Provost/Dean of Students charged the group to propose a revised Code that considers the following:

  1. Revision of prohibited conduct with an anti-racist lens
  2. Incorporation and foregrounding of alternative/non-adjudicative resolution options
  3. Process for integration of academic integrity adjudication into Code

The workgroup is proposing a significant revision to the Code, and interested in soliciting feedback about the draft changes. Below are links to the revised sections, as well as a survey for members of the Seattle University community to provide further feedback:

Interested community members should provide feedback no later than Sunday, June 4, 2023 to be considered in the new Code.

The following summarizes the recommended changes:

Process Changes

  • Replacing integrity formation mission/vision with curricular approach and learning outcomes
    • Related with ongoing work to align student development work with academic affairs.
  • Foregrounding informal/non-adjudicative and alternative resolution options
    • Aligned with goal of de-emphasizing formal processes, and making clearer to students that these are possible options for resolving a report.
  • Adding components for academic integrity process, including Academic Integrity Review Boards
    • Aligned with institutional direction of repositioning academic integrity work within the University.
  • Clarification of student rights and responsibilities in process
    • Aligned with goal of formatting policy with less formal language.
  • Addition of students to Review Boards
    • Aligned with goals of incorporating students into the process.

Prohibited Conduct Changes

  • Formatting the arrangement of policies to match University values.
  • Rename “prohibited conduct” to “community standards”
  • Separate cannabis/marijuana from other drugs
    • Aligned with state and regional efforts to decriminalize cannabis.
  • Revise “disorderly conduct” and “disruption”
    • Consistent with feedback from students and faculty about offering more detail.
  • Expand academic integrity policy to fold process into integrity formation.
    • Aligned with institutional direction of repositioning academic integrity work within the University.
  • Expand examples of sanctions to offer greater clarity, and order them based on type of sanction.

Language Changes

  • “Student” instead of “Respondent”
    • Aligned with goal of formatting policy with less formal language.
  • Collapse three definitions of Review Board, Conduct Review Board, and Organization Review Board into “Review Board.”
    • Aligned with goal of formatting policy with less formal language.
  • “Meeting” instead of “hearing”
    • Aligned with goal of formatting policy with less formal language.

Formatting Changes

  • Adding a table of contents for ease of reference.
  • Inserting hyperlinks throughout document.
  • Creating bulleted lists in some cases rather than paragraphs for ease of reading.