Every Bit of Ink

Policy 61 not out to get you

Cassandra Jowett
Published in The Ryersonian on September 24, 2008

Ryerson’s administration won’t investigate students under the new student code of non-academic conduct, unless a student, professor or employee files a formal complaint to the student conduct officer, staff said in a briefing on Monday.

“The university is really uninterested in what students do in their daily lives,” Julia Hanigsberg, Ryerson’s general counsel and secretary to the board of governors, says. “It’s not about going after students, it’s about protecting students.”

Policy 61, the newly revised non-academic code of conduct, came into effect on Sept. 3, after being in development for the last year.

Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) vice-president of education Rebecca Rose has taken issue with the “muddy” language of the code, adding that Policy 61 will violate the privacy of students.

“To leave an important document like a code of conduct open to interpretation is pretty ludicrous,” Rose said.

Rose says she finds the whole idea of the code insulting and dozens of students have approached her because they’re concerned about how the it will affect them. “It’s assuming that students aren’t able to monitor our own behaviour. We are adults, after all.”

President Sheldon Levy said fear surrounding the code is all “make-believe.”

The code doesn’t specifically indicate what it means when a student has “declared publicly that they represent the university,” but Hanigsberg says administration has a clear idea about what types of activities are covered by the code.

“Wearing a Ryerson T-shirt or belonging to the Ryerson Facebook network does not mean someone is representing the university,” she said.

“The kinds of examples that we use are if someone is attending a conference and presenting a paper on behalf of Ryerson, or the athlete who is playing a tournament over at Western, (these people are) officially representing Ryerson,” added Heather Lane Vetere, vice-provost students.

Lane Vetere, along with student conduct officer Mickey Cirak, decides what student behaviour violates the code. “Being a Ryerson student is part of who you are, not part of what you’re doing,” she says.

The code “will be applied regardless of the medium used for committing misconduct.”

Hanisgberg says this new provision will allow the university to investigate complaints received about online harassment, threats and bullying.

Lane Vetere says she and Cirak do not have time to track the online activities of Ryerson’s more than 24,000 students, nor does the code allow them to do so.

When asked if the university considers material posted on Facebook as public domain, Hanigsberg said, “I don’t have any opinion on that; You’d have to talk to Facebook.”

Lane Vetere added that there was no statement on that in the code.

Once a member of the Ryerson community files a formal, written complaint to the student conduct officer, Cirak works to determine whether or not the code applies, if the offender is actually in violation of the code and if evidence exists to prove the code has been violated. Then, depending on the severity of the complaint, he will recommend an appropriate punishment for the student.

Except in the most extreme cases, Hanigsberg says, informal resolutions will be used before more severe punishments, such as expulsion or contacting the police, are considered.

“University is a place where you can screw up a bunch of times and nothing happens to you,” she says. “The code is a means to understand what the guidelines are at the university.”

Though sections of the code are technically covered by criminal law, Levy said they were included because the police are often too busy to deal with all students’ concerns.

Cirak and Lane Vetere say the university received between 75 and 100 written complaints under the old code last year. Hanigsberg says Cirak’s position was created to ensure Ryerson continues to hold itself accountable for the investigations it undertakes and punishments it recommends.