UMW changes student conduct process rights and establishes appellate board

FROM REPORT PAGE 1

“The first is that it appears that the reviewers only met with one student who had gone through the process- that was my daughter and that meeting was scheduled after I offered it. I shared with administration throughout the review that it should be focused on the student experience. I don’t know if it is possible to have a complete understanding without hearing from more of the students who have gone through the process.”

Professor Rao was also concerned “that the review seems to suggest the need for additional resources.”

“I do not think that additional staffing or resources are necessarily warranted,” he said. “The review identified a number of inefficiencies in the process. My daughter and I were struck with how difficult it was to navigate, and like the reviewers we found the procedures to be highly confusing (they reference this on page 6 under Procedures). The process has a lot of problems that need to be addressed. Rather than simply devoting more resources I would think it would be better to first look at the management of that system and its administration.”

Before the review was finalized, UMW administrators made some preliminary changes to the Code of Conduct, including “reorganizing and clarifying complainants’ and respondents’ rights and establishing an appellate board consisting of faculty, staff, and students,” the Feb. 22 email said. While complainants now have eight rights with two additional rights for complainants when the respondent was criminally charged, complainants previously had three rights and respondents had 12.

Those changes will remain, administration said. There will also be a system for reviewing the code during the summer and annually thereafter, with the goals of transparency, clarity and flexibility.

As these changes are implemented, the reviewers said, they need to be overseen by more than just one person.

“It is our belief that to successfully commit to implementing some of these recommendations, there must be an organizational change,” the report said. “These recommendations above cannot sit with one individual.”