Other
professional matters
The University Classroom
Manual now requires that all courses, including those taught by TAs,
include the following guidance on student complaints and cheating
and they are included here partly to inform you of your rights and
duties on this course and also to provide discussion points for the
class and guidance for your own classes in the future, both those
you may run and those you may take.
Student complaints concerning
faculty action
The University Operations
Manual states that, at the beginning of each courses students should
be informed of departmental and collegiate complaint procedures. A
student who has a complaint against any member of the CollegeŠs teaching
staff is responsible for following the procedures described below.
Complaints may concern inappropriate faculty conduct (including inappropriate
course materials), incompetence in oral communication, inequities
in assignments, scheduling of examinations at other than authorized
and published times, failure to provide disability accommodations,
or grading grievances. In complaints involving assignment of grades,
it is college policy that grades cannot be changed without the permission
of the department concerned.
- The student should ordinarily
try to resolve the matter with the instructor first;
- If the complaint is not
resolved to the studentŠs satisfaction, the student should discuss
the matter further with the ..... DEO [Departmental Executive Officer],
or in some departments the person designated to hear complaints. [On
this course since I am both the coordinator and the DEO I will discuss
complaints about other faculty in the normal way, but in the case
of complaints about my own actions I will appoint a person from the
Graduate Affairs Committee to review any unresolved complaints about
this course that fall into this category]
- If the matter remains
unresolved, the student may submit a written complaint to the Graduate
College (Associate Dean Jakobsen 335-2137). The Associate Dean will
attempt to resolve the complaint and if necessary may convene a special
committee to recommend appropriate action. He will respond to the
student in writing concerning the disposition of the complaint.
- If the complaint cannot
be resolved through the mechanisms described above, the student may
file a formal complaint, which will be handled under the procedures
established for dealing with alleged violations of the statement on
professional ethics and academic responsibility in the University
Operations Manual. A description of these procedures may be obtained
in the Office of Academic Programs, 120 Schaeffer Hall (335-2633).
If complaints at the departmental or college level involving reasonable
academic accommodations for students with disabilities cannot be resolved
through the mechanisms described above, the student may consult the
Ombuds Office or the Office of Affirmative Action.
Plagiarism
and cheating
Plagiarism is, among other
things, the unacknowledged use of the ideas of another person. Cheating
is, among other things, copying from someone else's work [in undergraduate
classes, using sorority or fraternity records of previous answers
to essays in a class], or downloading work from an electronic database
without citation. I also interpret this to mean the borrowing of substantial
parts of essays that you or others have written for other courses
or for which you have received or will receive credit, copying work
from other students on the course, or representing as, your own work
work actually done by others. An instructor who suspects a student
of plagiarism or cheating must inform the student (preferably in writing)
as soon as possible after the incident has been observed or discovered.
Instructors who detect cheating or plagiarism may decide, in consultation
with the Departmental Executive Officer [or member of the Graduate
Affairs Committee as noted above], to reduce the student's grade for
the assignment or in the course, even to assign an F. Fuller details
of this policy are available from the Office of Academic Programs,
in the Schedule of Courses, and in the Liberal Arts Bulletin.
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