The Martlet

Policy to govern non-academic conduct

While the UVic administration said that no single incident sparked the creation of the non-academic misconduct policy, it could theoretically apply to protests such as last year’s guerilla gardens.

Sol Kauffman

UVic Student Affairs is seeking input on the creation of a new non-academic misconduct policy. The policy would allow the university to discipline students for behaviour that isn’t related to academics, overdue fees or criminal offenses.

“The vast majority of universities in North America have a policy document that speaks to the kind of community that you want to have on your campus,” explained Vice President of Student Affairs Jim Dunsdon. “It outlines what is acceptable behaviour and what are some things that are not acceptable, and if someone engages in unacceptable behaviour, what are the policies or processes that happen, what are some of the potential outcomes that might occur.”

The policy, currently in the draft phase, would cover things such as theft, destruction of property, fraud, dangerous behaviour, alcohol or drug use and unauthorized presence on university property. The policy would apply to any student engaging in non-academic misconduct on university property or in connection with a university activity.

Currently, discipline for such actions is up to the president of the university.

“The way the university act is written in B.C., it provides the president of the university with the ability to deal — I think the language is ‘summarily’ — with all matters of student discipline,” explained Dunsdon. “So UVic over the years has done that in different ways, and really this potential change isn’t meant to say that things haven’t worked well, it’s just that as the university evolves and continues to grow it’s a good time to reflect on whether as a community we prefer to have a document that outlines how those issues are handled.”

Though there are rumours that the policy’s creation was sparked by last year’s guerilla gardens, Dunsdon says this is not the case.

“I actually noticed the lack of policy process when I applied for this job two years ago and actually talked about it in my interview that I was going to explore this, and the committee began work on thisa year and 10 months ago now,” he said. “So this is not due to any incident or issue that’s occurred on campus. This is just something UVic doesn’t have that most other universities do and it’s a question of whether we want to adopt it or not.”

The document is currently posted online for student comment. The consultation period will close on April 6, at which point the policy will go to the university executive. If there seems to be enough support for the policy, then it will go to the UVic Senate in May for implementation in September.

UVic Students’ Society (UVSS) Chairperson James Coccola says if the policy works correctly, students shouldn’t notice a huge change.

“Students should not notice a difference,” he said. “It protects against if something serious happens, if a fight broke out, if somebody was carrying a weapon, the university would have the ability to assign a penalty based on the non academic policy.”

However, once a newer version is released, Coccola says the UVSS will look further into how students will be affected.

“We have discussed it with them a couple times, given them suggestions,” he said. “We haven’t seen an updated version yet so we can’t really comment on if we have concerns or not until we see an updated version.”

The draft policy is available online for feedback at uvic.ca/universitysecretary/policies/news.