Report of the Intimate Relationships Policy Committee
View the Intimate Relationships Policy Proposed Revisions (version 4)
Members of the Committee
- Mark Bocko, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hajim School of Engineering
- Valerie Fleischauer, Ph.D. student, Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences and President, Graduate Student Association
- Daniel Gorman Jr., Ph.D. student, History, School of Arts and Sciences and Communications, Graduate Student Association
- Amy Lerner, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
- Sally A. Norton, Associate Professor, School of Nursing
- Nora Rubel, Associate Professor, Religion & Classics, School of Arts and Sciences
- Michael Scott, Arthur Gould Yates Professor of Engineering, Computer Science, Hajim School of Engineering
- Reinhild Steingröver, Professor of German, Eastman School of Music
- Melissa Sturge-Apple, Associate Professor of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences and Dean of Graduate Studies, Arts, Sciences and Engineering
Report of the Committee
Review the summary of revisions as presented at the March 20, 2018 Fauclty Senate meeting.
Initial input was gathered from the policies of multiple universities (20+) that were aggregated on a website Cornell created. We also had input from the College Deans, and the MJW report.
We gathered web-feedback from the entire University community beginning mid-February via the Commission on Women and Gender Equity in Academia: https://www.rochester.edu/commission-women-gender-academia/feedback/
The draft policy was circulated to all Faculty Senate members in early March.
The policy was then discussed at last week’s faculty senate meeting.
The committee held one additional in-person meeting and engaged in extensive email deliberations to converge on the current version.
The only change of substance in this version from that discussed at the March 20, 2018 Senate meeting is an expansion of the definition of “the exercise of Academic Authority” to reflect concerns from the Med School. It allows for a degree of local flexibility is defining the domain of academic authority, which may be more appropriate for large Med Center departments – however the committee felt that it was important to retain a fairly strict definition of exercising academic authority as the default.
“Generally, it is assumed that faculty exercise academic authority over all students in their department or program. However, there are circumstances and academic structures within the University where the assumption of academic authority may not be fitting, for example, in cases of some secondary faculty appointments or informal program affiliations, or in large, distributed departments in the School of Medicine and Dentistry. In such cases, it is left to the Department Chair and cognizant Dean to define appropriate domains of academic authority; however, if there is uncertainty, the existence of academic authority should always be assumed.”
Note also that in the exceptions paragraph we decided to leave in the phrase “In rare cases” because in balance the committee felt that the cases where exceptions are needed will indeed be rare, and to relay the sentiment that exceptions will not a routine occurrence.
Last Revised: March 27, 2018