STLCC revises student code of conduct
By: SPENCER GLEASON
Editor-in-Chief
Two years ago, STLCC Chief Legal Counsel Marc Fried attended a conference for college and university attorneys. During the conference, the Student Code of Conduct was addressed and Fried took note.
“They were talking about a model code that some attorney prepared several years ago,” Fried said. “I looked at it and I just thought that it seemed to be set up better. It seemed to work better. It looked better to me than what we had, so that was my motivation for wanting to make the change.”
Since then, STLCC has started the process to make revisions to their Student Code of Conduct. The Student Code of Conduct would layout what is expected collegiate student behavior. Although no timetable is in place for a finished project, the ball is rolling.
“No changes have been approved yet. They have to be looked over by an attorney and then shared with the college and get student, faculty and staff input,” STLCC-Forest Park Vice President of Student Affairs Thomas Walker said. “We’re just looking to update our Student Code of Conduct, so it will be more of a 21st century Student Code of Conduct. It’s been years since the Student Code of Conduct has been revisited.”
With the Twitter and Facebook issues STLCC-Meramec has been involved with this semester, social media will be addressed in the new Student Code of Conduct. However, according to Walker, the Twitter threat on Aug. 28 and threatening Facebook photos by a Meramec student on Sept. 13 played no role in revising the Student Code of Conduct.
“I don’t think they played a role in it at all,” Walker said. “The discussion had already been held among the vice presidents about updating our Student Code of Conduct, in addition to lots of other initiatives to make the campuses not only safer, but monitor student behavior. I would certainly say that one of the concerns was that we didn’t have any wording that addressed things like social media in our Student Code of Conduct.”
According to Walker, students were able to have their input in the modifications.
“There was [student input]. It was just a random selection of students. It also involved a review of student discipline cases. So we could ascertain what kind of trending patterns we were having with student behaviors, to make sure that everything could be addressed in it,” Walker said. “Then students will give a second round of input, which would be more in depth. But that wouldn’t be necessary until after the legal counsel has reviewed it.”
According to Fried, there have not been any changes yet and only discussions have taken place.
“I think there are some discussions about preparing a draft,” Fried said. “There is a process to get a procedure or board policy changed and it will have to go through that process before it’s ever formally adopted and approved.”
Before there is a draft to present to the board of trustees, the STLCC campuses would be able to have their say in the final project.
“We would have to get a legal counsel to review it to make sure that everything, in terms of legalities and use of language is appropriate,” Walker said. “Then you share it with the various campuses for it to actually to become applicable to our campuses. It would have to be reviewed by our college leadership team and then approved by the board of trustees.”
According to Fried, even if something were adopted this year, it would not be put in place until the fall 2014 semester.
“My guess it wouldn’t go into effect until the next academic year. That would be my guess,” Fried said. “My own opinion is it needs to be updated. So hopefully we can get that done.”
