Balancing due process and students' needs: alternative conflict resolution to better support University of Delaware students
Date
2023
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The problem that this Education Leadership Portfolio (ELP) sought to address was the traditional conduct resolution (TCR) process at the University of Delaware (UD) provides too few options to resolve conduct and conflict issues that promote learning and personal growth for students who do not pose a potential threat to those involved or the UD community. As a result, UD students have less agency while engaging with the TCR process. Indeed, the TCR process inadequately attends to transformative, restorative, and procedural justice (Schrage & Giacomini, 2020), which can better meet students’ unique needs. In the 1961 U.S. federal court decision Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, the court ruled that students who violated an institution of higher education’s (IHE) Code of Conduct (COC) must be afforded minimal due process rights (Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, 1961). Minimal due process rights included notice and an opportunity for a hearing. These rights needed to be preserved, as an IHE determined if students would be found responsible for violating a COC (Lake, 2009). While the court’s ruling did not guide IHEs on how to ensure minimal due process rights in their student conduct systems, the court did caution IHEs not to create student conduct systems that imitated the judicial court system. Despite the court’s advice, most IHEs created rather legalistic student conduct systems that did, in fact, imitate the judicial court system, often due to a lack of resources to create more unique student conduct systems (Waryold & Lancaster, 2020). ☐ Literature (e.g., Lake, 2009) suggests that stand-alone processes like UD’s current TCR process do not provide students with the most appropriate opportunity to learn about and from their actions along with how to engage in different, more preventative actions in the future. The use of alternative conflict resolution (ACR) options—either in addition to or instead of the current TCR process—allows conflict and conduct issues that result in individual and community harm to be resolved with restorative practices so that all community members can work together on resolution (Schrage & Giacomini, 2009). ☐ This ELP’s improvement goal was to enhance the UD student conduct system to promote a more equitable student experience. For this ELP, I defined equitable as IHEs (a) understanding what barriers may be in place that may limit students’ success and (b) identifying and appropriately responding to those barriers and students’ individual needs. A review of literature (e.g., Lake, 2009; Schrage & Giacomini, 2020) suggests that students have two broad sets of needs: fairness and restoration. Therefore, a student conduct system that promotes a more equitable student experience (a) is fair by ensuring that students are afforded their minimal due process rights and (b) uses restorative practices to respond appropriately to meet students’ individual needs along with UD community needs. ☐ To realize this ELP’s improvement goal, I implemented two improvement strategies: (a) better understand UD students’ experiences with UD’s current student conduct system, and (b) better position staff members in the Community Standards and Conflict Resolution (CSCR) office to implement an enhanced student conduct system that included ACR options alongside UD’s current TCR process. For the first improvement strategy, I analyzed the extent to which inequities may be present in UD’s student conduct system along with conducting interviews with UD students about their experiences with UD’s student conduct system. For the second improvement strategy, I reviewed the literature on ACR options, led CSCR staff members through a book discussion about ACR options and through a strategic planning process, and piloted two ACR options at UD. Results suggest that students desire more conflict resolution options in UD’s student conduct system, CSCR staff members are gaining abilities to design and implement ACR options, and ACR options are helping educate students about the consequences of their actions.
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Keywords
Delaware students, Education Leadership Portfolio, Student affairs, Student conduct systems, Traditional conduct resolution