SG Update 09/21

Policy C23

Erika Duthiers, assistant vice president for compliance and ethics and deputy general counsel in the Office of Legal Affairs, worked with Judy Bender, the assistant vice president and director of human resources, to draft a revised version of Policy C23. The policy addresses consensual romantic and sexual relationships.

President Munson presented the revised policy to the senate.

“Our Board of Trustees certainly has noticed some serious things happening at other universities that didn’t go well and asked us to look at our policy ... and, for us, that’s C23. Our policy is very much out of date," he explained. "It discourages certain behaviors but doesn’t really prohibit much of anything. That’s completely out of step with where universities are heading right now.”

Duthiers explained that the policy covers three kinds of intimate relationships: relationships between all RIT employees and undergraduate students, relationships between all RIT employees and graduate students and relationships between supervisors and their direct reports. The first kind is prohibited, while the last two will be examined case-by-case to see if there is potential for abuse of power.

One exception to this policy is if the intimate relationship pre-dates the RIT employee’s hiring date or the student’s start at RIT and if there is no abuse of power.

The revised policy is expected to be put in place on an interim basis within the coming weeks. It is expected to be made permanent in November.

Strategic Plan

President Munson also presented the new Strategic Plan. The plan currently has over 120 goals. It has now become a “highly streamlined version” that has been brought down to 44, and then further narrowed to 25. The plan is now accompanied with a table that has a brief description of each goal, a way to measure each goal, a set of benchmarks for quantitative goals, approximate cost, a schedule for the goal to follow and who is responsible for accomplishing the goal.

The streamlining process for the Strategic Plan included combining small goals into a single larger goal and removing goals that are in the process of being or have already been accomplished.

Munson showed his appreciation for Provost Ellen Granberg's work in helping with the Strategic Plan.

“Ellen has been working a whole lot with the Deans these last few weeks. And they’ve got a whole bunch of suggestions ... on how we talk about who we are and where we’re going,” said Munson.

COLA Senator

Ashley Rezendes, a second year Advertising and Public Relations major, was elected by the senate for the position of COLA Senator.

Course Withdrawal Policy

Lynne Mazadoorian, director of the University Advising Office, and Belinda Bryce, director of Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP), have been working together to revise RIT’s course withdrawal policy over the past two years. They have held faculty focus groups and have met with the associate deans, student government groups, graduate council, and Co-op and Academic committee. Their goal is to forward all of their work over the past two years to the Academic Affairs committee and Academic Senate and propose the changes to be made for the next academic year.

Currently, RIT students are allowed to withdraw from all their credit courses with a simple button-click. Mazadoorian and Bryce are working to change this issue so that students don’t fall below their required 12 credits when withdrawing from classes.

“So, our rationale is that right now RIT’s current course withdrawal policy is too liberal. It needs to be strengthened to more effectively support student success,” said Bryce.

No changes will be made to the policy for graduate students. For undergraduate students, they recommend that the policy continue to allow withdrawal up through the eleventh week of classes if they are registered full-time, as long as they do not fall below 12 credits. If the student is falling below 12 credits, they will need to meet with the leader of their academic department.

SG senate motioned to endorse the revised proposal.

Charges and responses

One PawPrint asking for Public Safety to post a lip sync battle video has been declined because of time and the process required to have the video approved.

Charges were added to an older PawPrint that asked for internet to be brought to Riverknoll apartments. Internet has been given to Riverknoll, so inspections are scheduled to be done soon to ensure that it is up to RIT’s standards and is fully functional.

Charges were also added to a PawPrint asking for free or reduced-price color printing. An investigation will be done on the printing services offered by other universities, the cost of student printing, and the Wallace Library’s budget before reduced costs can be announced. Corinn Marriott, CAD senator and fourth year Illustration major, was added to the charges.

A response was drafted to the PawPrint asking for improved parking. Over the summer, reserved parking spots were moved to general spots. Reviews are still being done to create short-term parking spots and spaces closer to academic buildings.