Mills College is looking for students who are interested in joining the Conduct Hearing Board. The Conduct Hearing Board reviews alleged violations and cases on the academic integrity and conduct code.
The conduct hearing board involves the cross-collaboration of students, staff and faculty which form the committee. The cases are either referred directly by a conduct officer or appealed by a student.
The conduct code can be found in the Mills Handbook, which is available online. These conduct codes are elaborated on further in mandatory courses for first-year incoming students such as the Information Literacy course, which details the College’s standards of citing sources and formatting citations as well as the types of plagiarism and their consequences.
The other mandatory course, which is part of a third party website called Campus Clarity, is titled “Think About It,” and aims to help incoming students consider the impact of their actions. This course navigates students through situations that they will likely encounter in college settings, such as party scenes, involving topics such as sexual relationships, boundary setting and substance abuse.
This is important to note because student members of the conduct hearing board will be weighing in on instances of reported student violations, which include but are not limited to these student conduct violations of this nature.
According to the Mills Handbook, “hearings by the Conduct Officer follow an informal process, which allows for the student to present their view of the facts and for witnesses or other credible sources to present information pertinent to the complaint.”
This is subsequently followed by one of two outcomes: should the student accept responsibility, the conduct officer will “determine responsibility, assign appropriate sanctions as applicable, and notify the student in writing.”
However, should the student appeal, they would need to do so within five business days of their notified violation and then their case would go to either the Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Chicora Martin or to a subsection of the student conduct board and committee of staff and faculty for review.
The time commitment that is expected from students varies from case to case, but students should note that they hold the option to decline in participating, should there be a scheduling conflict.
The Conduct Hearing Board is an opportunity to weigh in on cases that directly impact students and campus life.
For students that are interested in pursuing a position on the conduct board, they would have to be available for a mandatory half-day of training. Martin states that “[t]here will be many elements of training to ensure the members of the board can be fair and equitable while applying our student code of conduct.” Ongoing trainings for students may be provided throughout the year at Mills’ discretion.
In order to apply students must have a 2.5 GPA, and have no history of conduct violations, in addition to submitting their resume and expressing why they want to be on the Conduct Hearing Board to deanofstudents@mills.edu by Saturday, Dec. 15, 2018.
