Sept. 2012

OACUHO PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE—1

Fall Business Meeting 2012 - 2

RESIDENCE LIFE CONFERENCE 2013— 3

President’s Corner: Greetings OACUHO! I hope you have settled in nicely to fall, and into the 2012-2013 academic year. After months of exciting preparation, our students have entered our halls and we as housing officers are charged with sup-porting their living and learning success. For some students transitioning to our environments can be challenging as they test limits, learn from experiences, and adjust to what it means to be a student living in residence. This edition of the Pulse strives to provide resources, stories, and dialogue around student conduct and community manage-ment. As a student leader in residence, and in my first years as a housing officer, interacting with students who had infract-ed on community standards was easily the most challenging and rewarding part of my role. I found myself having tough conversations that required honesty, vul-nerability, and compassion balanced with assertiveness and a dedication to uphold-ing the integrity of a positive, inclusive community. The repercussions of manag-ing student conduct with growth and de-velopment in mind gave me active prac-tice in building community- regardless of how challenging it could be. As housing officers and administrators it is often dealing with challenges that cause us to develop professionally. The 2012-2013 OACUHO Board of Directors has

taken on professional development in choosing to serve the association in vari-ous roles on the Board. There are dozens of members who have chosen to serve this year by being an active part of our committees, serving on task forces, host-ing OACUHO events, and actively engag-ing in conversation regarding the associa-tion. As a board we have worked hard to actively engage the membership and build a strong OACUHO community- regardless of how challenging it can be. I personally invite you to join us on Octo-ber 19, 2012 at Ryerson University for our Fall Business Meeting. On this day you will have the opportunity to interact with Tom Ellet- Vice President of ACUHO-I and Associate VP of Students at NYU who is our keynote speaker and scholar in residence, hear about the work of the Board of Directors, and attend several concurrent sessions facilitated by OACUHO members. To end the day we will head to the historic Maple Leaf Gar-dens for a social and hockey game- it will incredible to see everyone again! I wish you all the best as we head into October, Jen Gonzales President, OACUHO 2012-2013 @jengonzales8 #oacuho360

The Judicial

Issue

CONNECT WITH

OACUHO!!

#OACUHO360

A Welcome Video from the OACUHO

Board of Directors!!

Hello OACUHO! I hope you have all enjoyed the rush and excitement of the Fall 2012 start-up. On behalf of the Student Conduct and Academic In-tegrity Association (SCAIA), the Executive Board and I would like to invite you to participate in several new initiatives and profes-sional development opportunities.

SCAIA is a division of the Canadian Association of Colleges and University Student Services (CACUSS). We welcome all college and university professionals who are involved in issues of academic integrity and student conduct. Our members include, but are not lim-ited to, residence life professionals, academic integrity officers, student conduct officers, academic integrity programming coordina-tors, hearing board members/advisors and those working in student advocacy.

For a limited time only, we are excited to welcome individuals, members or not, to join our new online community. This community is designed to unite colleagues and provide valuable resources, critical guidance and participation in online discussions. Participants will have access to student conduct professionals from across the country to assist in answering questions and to learn more about best practices in the field . If you are interested in this opportunity, please email me at lara.hof@humber.ca subject line: SCAIA Forum.

Our online community will highlight and feature a weekly resource. For example, this week’s resource is Paperclip Communications’’ Student Conduct: Best Practices for Changing Times; a resource binder designed to help you stay current in an ever evolving student conduct field. For more information, visit www.student-conduct.com.

We are also excited to take this opportunity to announce the inaugural Restorative Justice Training Institute being hosted at the University of Toronto –– Hart House on November 13-15th. Our presenters include Chris Hackett, Discipline Officer from the University of Alberta and Neil Buddel, Associate Director- Residence Life from the University of Guelph. Register soon, participation is limited.

Information is available on our new Facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/studentconduct/

Finally, we would like to invite current CACUSS members to participate in our ““Dare to Declare Challenge. ”” In the next 30 days, we dare you to explore our associations’’ initiatives and enter for your chance to win! Declare SCAIA as your primary or secondary divi-sion through CACUSS and be eligible to win a $25 gift card of your choice. Declaring is easy. Email contact@cacuss.ca and declare SCAIA as your primary or secondary division within CACUSS. It’s that simple! By declaring, your name will be entered into our draw. Winners will be contacted by email, and announced on our Facebook page.

We welcome questions, wish you all the best and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Lara Hof SCAIA Eastern Representative Manager, Community Judicial Affairs Humber College

Please join us at Ryerson University for the OACUHO Fall Business Meeting on Friday October 19. The Fall Business Meeting is not only an important meeting for the association is it also an excellent way to re-connect with col-leagues and invest in your professional development. This year we have an exciting keynote and visiting scholar in Tom Ellett. Tom is the Associate Vice President for Student Affairs at New York University and the Vice-President of ACUHO-I. Tom is an engaging speaker and his keynote will resonate with all func-tional areas of student housing. Tom will also have some time with the CHO committee in the afternoon.

In the afternoon we have several concurrent session for your professional development. We are excited for this offering and hope there is something for everyone. - Ryan King presenting on Off-Campus Housing - Mitch Burnie and Paul Reifenstein presenting on student staff hiring - Tom Ellett will have 'Scholar in Residence' time - The following OACUHO Networks will also meet - Women's Network, Small School Network, Counsellor in Residence - The CHO Committee will have a meeting all afternoon

All that you say? No, no - even more! At 4:30pm will we have an optional Ryerson Student Housing Services Facilities tour (registration required). During this tour you will have the opportuni-ty to get behind the scenes and ask questions about the mainte-nance and cleaning operations at Ryerson University. THEN! It's the evening. Rather than fighting traffic to return to your homes - please stay in the city and join us for a cocktail re-ception at the new Mattamy Athletic Centre at Maple Leaf Gar-dens. Following the reception please feel free to stay for the op-tional hockey game as the Ryerson Men's Hockey team will face off against Queens! Registration is now live! http://oacuho.com/index.php?section=events&evtid=129 Early Member Registration (October 5 by noon) - $80 Early Non-Member Registration (October 5 by noon) - $80 Late Registration (October 12 by 5pm) - $100

See you October 19th!

For more information on this event,

please see the flyer on page 7

Save the Date:

January 25th – January 27th 2013.

The University of Guelph is proud to host the 2013 OACUHO Residence Life Conference.

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO At UW, all student conduct issues are managed directly by RLCs through individual student meetings with those involved. RLCs move forward with appropriate sanctions or follow up by involving the students in the conversation. This can be intimidating for students who make poor choices in the first few weeks of the semester. Thus, the RLCs make a point to drop in at every Don’s 1

st communi-

ty meeting during the first day of Move In. This allows us to welcome students to residence and briefly introduce ourselves (and our roles) as building coordinators so that students can put a face to their respective RLC in a friendly and welcoming environment before beginning their residence experience. As conduct incidents arise

through Orientation Week and the first few weeks of clas-ses, students are already relatively familiar with who their respective RLC is. If they are not, then the conduct meet-ings become chances to meet students on a one-on-one basis and help them understand they have support in making smart choices throughout the year. Many interac-tions are positive, and September proves to be the first chance to showcase to students how identifying a poor choice and participating in the process of rectifying its effects can be a positive experience. After all, residence can be great, only if everyone – including students them-selves – participate in the adventure. Stephanie Cullen & Franco Solimano Residence Life Co-ordinators

Community Standards Board at UTM By Greg Hum As stated in the UTM residence occupancy agreement, “no Resident is permitted to interfere with the right of any other Resident to the peaceful and reasonable enjoyment of his/her room and common privileges, or to endanger the safety and security of any individual, in-cluding one self, through such activities as may be deemed harmful as determined by the University.” In other words, “home” for UTM residence students is a place where everyone can feel safe, comfortable, and valued. The Community Standards are a mechanism though which these ideals are encouraged and students’ rights are protected. The Community Standards Board (CSB) at UTM is a peer-based judicial affairs board. They are students, holding other students accountable. The board is composed of undergraduate residence students representing a variety of programs and years of study. Students who are accused of breaching the Community Standards are summonsed to a CSB meeting. At the CSB meeting, students are given the opportunity to explain the incident in question and provide additional details not originally outlined in the reporting documents. CSB members ask questions and examine the evidence to better understand the case and inform their decision. At the conclusion of the meeting, the CSB members deliberate and determine if the student did in fact breach the Community Standards, and if so, determine an appropriate sanction. An important part of the CSB is that it values education over punishment and encourages students to learn from their actions.

TRENT UNIVERSITY The Peer Review Group (PRG) at Trent University is formed to help deal with the more serious offences within Trent residenc-es. When something like an assault occurs in residence, the Col-lege Residence Life Coordinator (CRLC) follows through with the investigation, like any other case. If the CRLC determines that the student is no longer fit to live in residence, the PRG reviews the case to ensure that the right decision is being made. It's an-other check, to ensure that everything is being done properly, especially since once the case gets to the PRG the consequenc-es are pretty severe - termination of residence contract, suspen-sion, and occasionally relocation. The PRG can also deals with appeals, but that is pretty rare. In the past, the PRG has consisted of 3-7 students. The student are recommend by CRLC's and are known by them to be honest, reliable people. They are trained in the Residence Judicial Pro-

cess from the generation of an Incident Report to what sort of situations the PRG might be called to address. They are also required to sign a confidentiality agreement. When a case comes to the Judicial Affairs Officer (myself, Josh Veenstra) where the PRG needs to get together, I invite everyone to attend. We need a group of three students to make quorum. The details of the case are presented to the students, and they discuss if the sug-gested sanctions by the CRLC stand. They are able to disagree with the CRLC, and suggest alternative sanctions. The profes-sional staff member in the room does not have a say in this pro-cess. They are there just to start the process and answer any questions about policy or procedure. Once the PRG has made a decision, I meet with the student to give them their sanction letter from the PRG and go over the options that the student has. Josh Veenstra College Residence Life Coordinator - Special Projects (Champlain College) Judicial Officer

Flourless Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies From Sarah Memme

Want a quick snack to bring to your early morning meetings? Need something to serve those gluten free students? Check this out!

Ingredients 1 cup natural creamy peanut butter 1/2 cup natural cane sugar 2 large egg whites 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

How-To Preheat the oven to 325°°. Stir together the first 4 ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop the dough by the tablespoons, 2″* apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheet Bake for 12-14 minutes. Tada!

Servings: about 30 cookies Check out: http://chocolateandcarrots.com/ for more delicious goodness

Have an idea for something in The Pulse? Have some fun pho-

tos you would like to share with the rest of OACUHO? Proud of

something you’ve done at your institution? Is there someone

you want to recognize for their great work? Do you have a web-

site/article you wish others could read?

Then that’s great! Submit to Heather MacKinnon by the 20th of

each month and they will appear in that month’s issue!

Don’t forget to check out the OACUHO Blog!

Bunnies, Deer, and Cougars…or a Whole Other Animal? Student Conduct Management - University of Victoria, BC By: Dan Cantiller, former Residence Life Coordinator (UVic) Let’s be clear and upfront about one thing from the start: I’m not a huge fan of animals, or much of nature for that matter, as some of my new colleagues can attest. But I couldn’t resist the cute title. I’m Dan, and I’m currently the Academic Link Facilitator with Stu-dent Housing Services at Ryerson University. Before starting my current position at RU, I worked out west for 2 years in beautiful Victoria, BC, as an RLC there. Though my current portfolio does not include direct involvement with our community standards pro-cess, I have been encouraged to share my experiences from UVic, as that was a large component of my weekly work responsi-bilities (about 75%, I’d estimate). My background as a student staff is working for 4 years on the Don Team at University College (UofT), on a team of 21 oversee-ing 720 students. In my graduating year, our Dean was encourag-ing a move away from a disciplinary points system entirely, and really encouraging proactive community development, mostly through programming and educational conversations. So you can imagine my shock once I started at UVic (about 90 student staff for now 2300 students) to find that it was actively working to coun-ter its “party-school” reputation, and is known regionally as having the highest number of incident reports submitted. At UC, we didn’t even use an online database to document incidents…email, writ-ten bi-weekly logs anyone? I felt like an awkward turtle being thrown in a glass cage of emotion…and things that like to eat tur-tles. Starting my first RLC role the same week as senior staff training, I had my fair bit of challenge set out before me. Rather than resist it, I jumped in, volunteering to co-present the (fairly extensive and comparatively more structured) Community Standards and cate-gory system with our Coordinator, Residence Community Stand-ards. That was just the beginning of the learning process and tons of learning on the job: behaviour meetings, assigning educational sanctions, tracking and completing the administrative components of the student conduct management system – all while trying to learn names, develop a new student staff, and get settled into a new city, province, non-Toronto. After going through the year cycle, gaining experience and en-countering Halloween and St. Paddy’s on-call, I started to better understand the animal that was the student conduct management system at UVic. This work takes a personal toll! It’s important to balance your own self-care and debrief with colleagues and other

professionals to expand the network of support for the students (especially those in crisis) and for yourself. After reflection and discussions with mentors at other institutions, I tried to reconcile how the experience and systems in place at these different institu-tions could be so different. Definitely the student population and needs were different. UC and UVic differ in terms of size, the de-mographics of the residents (eg. different aspects of diversity were highlighted), physical residence location and layout, and communi-ty membership (UC – 40% first years, UVic – 85% first years). All of these factors contribute to the kinds of behaviours that are wit-nessed in the residence community, and consequently the needs and education that these systems require to be well supported and safe. One area I’m excited to see grow at UVic and other institutions across the Canadian higher ed landscape is restorative justice. I was very fortunate to be able to attend a pre-conference session at the CACUSS conference at Ryerson with SCAIA (Student Con-duct and Academic Integrity Association), then a Restorative Jus-tice Symposium at the University of Alberta later that summer. I came back from these forums totally caffeinated on RJ-goodness and looking to implement some best practices to help shape our Community Standards portfolio. Though a long and details-heavy process, I engaged in the annual summer review of our Standards and behaviour follow-up process-es. Some areas we strove to grow in were in the educational sanctions that we could use as tools to engage students whose behaviour comes to our attention. We also changed how we trained our student staff, reviewing restorative justice philosophy and practical elements, stressing the importance of community building as an important proactive measure to help offset a preva-lence of negative or unsafe behaviours. There is much more I could share about my experience with train-ing on and being involved in the student conduct management system at UVic. I do want to be mindful of the length of this arti-cle, however, so I welcome you to contact/connect with me should you be interested to continue the conversation, share resources, or just say hello! Looking forward to connect with you. Cheers, Dan Cantiller dancan@ryerson.ca @DanCanThinks

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY

Queen’s University’s residence student conduct process is different from many schools because it is student-run from the ground up in the majority of cases. The Residence Judicial Office is responsible for creating policy, but student staff – Dons and Residence Facilitators – are responsible for documenting situa-tions, investigating the cases, following up with students and as-signing educational sanctions. Our reasoning is that as live-in and are part of the floor communities, student staff are better able to relate to their peers and help residents understand and learn from the impact of their actions upon their community. Participating in the conduct process gives our student staff valuable experience, and we strive to consult with the student population through their

elected representatives when creating or changing policy. Finally, our appeals process runs with the assistance of our Residence Judicial Office, but the Residence Conduct Board that hears ap-peals is comprised entirely of Queen’s students from a variety of disciplines. Residence Life management will step in for serious or complex cases such as those involving harassment, violence, and fire safety, but we are proud of our student conduct process. We find this system very successful and that it prompts ownership, responsibility, and involvement in our residents.

Jordon McLinden and Caleigh Minshall

This article was written in consultation with Queen’s Residence

Judicial Advisor, Hung Mai.

Corporate Member Profile

Harco was established in 1961 and is the distributor and operator of Commercial Maytag Laundry Equipment. Since its inception, the Har-co name has become synonymous with dependability, expertise and service second to none.

On multiple occasions, we were awarded the prestigious Fred Maytag award. This award recognizes the top commercial Maytag distribu-tor in the world. On numerous occasions, we were also awarded the Red Carpet Service Award, recognizing us as top commercial service organization.

Our motto is “Exceptional Service for Exceptional Customers” and we will not accept anything less from our team of dedicated employees.

In addition to the many private and public residential buildings, Harco operates card operated laundry equipment in over 40 colleges. Our dedication and commitment towards these colleges is rewarded by the fact that many of the leases are renewed without any need or de-sire by the college to tender the contract.

We believe that providing a first class service to students is key. Immediate response to their problems will allow them to allocate precious time to academic success and not laundry issues.

In addition to the many card systems available or compatible to your one card system, Harco also offers our LaundryView Monitoring Sys-tem. LaundryView is an internet application that allows students to monitor the status of washers and dryers in their laundry rooms through a Web browser. Since many students tend to do their laundry during similar time periods, it results in busy laundry rooms. Laundry View’s mission is to help students save time by providing information about the current state of laundry room equipment wherever you have ac-cess to browser or e-mail messages.

For additional information, contact Ugo Amendola at 1-800-387-9503 ext 257.

Harco Leasing Inc. is a proud member of OACUHO The ‘Corporate Member Profile’ is managed by Brent Rohrer, Corporate Member Relations Director rohrer@mcmaster.ca

Fall Business Meeting 2013

With the 2012 Fall Business Meeting fast approaching, we'll soon be connecting again face to face in downtown Toronto at Ryerson! We all look forward to these opportunities to get together, share ideas and learn from each other in person a few times a year. These moments wouldn't be possible without institutions stepping forward to plan and host each conference. Hosting a conference is an amazing project to work on as a team, and provides an opportunity to showcase your institution. Our goal is to secure conference hosts at least a year in advance so that host committees have lots of time to prepare and plan. At the moment we are currently seeking hosts for the 2013 Fall Business Meeting. If you are interested in placing a bid for the 2013 Fall Business Meeting (or any OACUHO conference) please visit the "Resources" section on the OACUHO website, scroll down to "Official Documents" and check out the "OACUHO Conference Bid Guidelines". Also, feel free to contact Sunita Karir, OACUHO's Conference Director (sunitakarir@trentu.ca) if you have any questions about what a bid or conference hosting entails. The OACUHO Board is always available to support host institutions in anyway we can! Our hope is to announce the host institution for next year's Fall Business Meeting at Ryerson in a few weeks! If you are in-terested in placing a bid, please send it to sunitakarir@trentu.ca and info@oacuho.com by Monday, October 15th.

Thanks, and we look forward to hearing from you soon!

mailto:nbuddel@uoguelph.ca