Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Logo of The Spectrum
Friday, March 29, 2024
The independent student publication of The University at Buffalo, since 1950

Faculty Senate passes academic integrity policy, amendments for students

Academic integrity policy, menstrual products discussed at Tuesday's meeting

<p>The Faculty Senate passed amendments to the undergraduate and graduate academic integrity policies at Tuesday’s meeting.&nbsp;</p>

The Faculty Senate passed amendments to the undergraduate and graduate academic integrity policies at Tuesday’s meeting. 

The Faculty Senate voted to amend UB’s academic integrity policies and create an office to handle academic dishonesty on campus.

During the senate’s meeting at the Center for Tomorrow on Tuesday, Elaine Cusker, senior associate dean for undergraduate education, and Graham Hammill, vice provost for graduate affairs,proposed changes to the undergraduate and graduate academic integrity policies. The Faculty Senate also discussed accessibility of menstrual products on campus. President Satish Tripathi attended the meeting and gave remarks, discussing the new Athletic Director Mark Alnutt’s appointment and recently named UB distinguished professors.

Cusker reintroduced the integrity policy proposals, originally provided last February. She included six new amendments to the undergraduate policy and seven to the graduate policy. The proposals are the result of a two-year study done by Cusker and James Jensen, director of undergraduate studies. The Spectrumreported on this study and initial recommendation for an academic integrity officein March.

The changes proposed an academic integrity office with a professional staff and a faculty-student committee for judicial issues. The office will replace the current discipline process, which must go through the department chair, decanal and vice provost level, with a more centralized system, according to Cusker.

“The aim is to provide a policy that will allow greater consistency, greater fairness, we think, and eventually greater understanding because of a more robust educational effort,” Cusker said at the meeting.

The graduate academic integrity policy changes largely offered the same amendments, but had some exceptions. The graduate policy preamble now clarifies that degree programs have their own internal policies. Still, the office of the provost would play a role in the process if a student wants to appeal beyond the degree program.

The graduate policy also doesn’t include infractions taken out of the undergraduate level.

“When you're dealing with graduate students in general, the expectation for understanding is at a higher level,” Hammill said.

Sharon Nolan-Weiss, director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, presented at the meeting and discussed what her department is focused on achieving.

Nolan-Weiss touched on “hot topics,” including accessibility, a religious-neutral calendar at UB, students with disabilities, preferred names and sexual misconduct on campus.

Before the presentation, Nolan-Weiss addressed physiology professor Susan Udin’s question about acessibility to menstrual products on campus, a topic The Spectrum reported last week.

“I’ve been speaking with our interim vice provost for inclusive excellence about what we can do to kind of provide the products in a way that is still free but discourages [misuse],” Nolan-Weiss said.

Earlier in the meeting, Tripathi addressed Udin’s concern as well.

“We are really working on it right now,” Tripathi said.

The next Faculty Senate meeting is May 15 at 3 p.m.

Brenton Blanchet is the managing editor and can be reached at Brenton.Blanchet@ubspectrum.com


BRENTON J. BLANCHET
brent.jpg


Brenton J. Blanchet is the 2019-20 editor-in-chief of The Spectrum. His work has appeared in Billboard, Clash Magazine, DJBooth, PopCrush, The Face and more. Ask him about Mariah Carey.

Comments


Popular









Powered by SNworks Solutions by The State News
All Content © 2024 The Spectrum