Tech Approves New Academic Integrity Policy

The Tech Board Of Trustees voted Thursday to create a new Student Academic Integrity Policy.

It replaces the current Student Academic Misconduct Policy. Provost Lori Bruce recommended a major review of the policy by a faculty and student committee, as part of a scheduled review of all academic policies.

“I believe it’s a major improvement to approach the topic from a positive perspective of promoting academic integrity and then dealing with academic misconduct if it does happen, but to approach it in a positive way of educating students and faculty and approaching it in that fashion,” Bruce said.

Trustee Camron Rudd said he believed the changes had watered down the policy too significantly, likening it to the commandments with its “thou shall not” language.

“The new has a list of violations, but that sharp language seems to have been intentionally muted, and I’m a little concerned about that approach, to be honest,” Rudd said.

Dr. Julie Baker led the review committee. She said they purposefully tried to move the policy more towards education and away from a scare tactic. She said currently students are so scared of the current policy that they will not appeal a decision made.

“Those words that you just used can be very intimidating for the students,” Baker said. “We definitely wanted to take that piece away on purpose to make it more of a learning experience for them. We wanted to build in the education instead of making it seem really just so negative and so much like a punishment. I mean, there are still consequences. Those are there. But it’s not as intimidating for students.”

Rudd and Trustee Johnny Stites both voted against the proposed changes.

The policy will also eliminate one of the two review boards designed to deal with students accused. Bruce said that committee will be a University-wide group instead of one at the college level as well.

“Currently, when we have the college committees, the preponderance of the work that’s done in managing the case is at the college level, and we see a high variability in how those are handled, and not always to the student’s benefit, to be honest,” Bruce said. “Having a committee who reviews all those cases and has experience, because there’s areas where very few academic misconduct cases come forward. And so if you have one committee who’s consistently reviewing them all, they have a lot more experience, and they build experience over time and knowledge of maybe different standards across disciplines and approaches across disciplines.”

Student Trustee Claire Myers said she worried a university-wide group might not understand the intricacies of individual departments. She said it also reduced the hearing opportunities for a student accused.

The policy also includes the creation of a University Academic Integrity Officer, to be housed at the Volpe Library. Bruce said the staff member, an existing staffer rather than a new addition, would serve as a neutral party away from individual colleges and departments.

“(They) will serve as a resource, an educator for students and faculty and this role also provides consistency across the colleges so that there’s a neutral party stewarding the process when there’s a misconduct case,” Bruce said. “We feel that’s important because in the library, it’s a neutral party. It’s not someone from one of the colleges that might then in some way have a conflict of interest because the student might come from that college.”

Professors and instructors will also be trained to understand the process, so that the university operates with a singular-focus on the issue across the campus. Trustee Dr. Jeannette Luna said she’s noticed differences currently in how cases are treated by academic leaders at different places around the University.