It was late November and Chris Avenir’s assignments were piling up.
Overwhelmed, the first-year mechanical engineering student knew he needed peer help with assignments for his chemistry class, so he went to the community he knows best: Facebook, the world’s most popular social-networking site.
Avenir, 18, joined a group called the Dungeon Mastering Chemistry Solutions, a virtual study session with his peers, and ended up with a B in his introductory chemistry class.
But when Avenir returned to school after the winter break, his mark had morphed into an F and he was facing expulsion.
Why? Avenir had signed up to be an administrator for the Facebook group that has been accused by chemistry professors of helping students cheat. He faces one charge of academic misconduct and 146 charges of helping others do the same.
Avenir’s experience is one student advocates are raising this week while the Senate committees finalize changes to the academic and non-academic codes of conduct. The revision process has been ongoing since last summer.
Senate representatives want to write Facebook into the non-academic code, but students also fear it will only broaden the scope of the university’s jurisdiction over student activities.
The Ryerson Students’ Union and the Continuing Education Students at Ryerson are fighting to make sure students can’t be punished for what they do or say on Facebook or anywhere else online.
They do not want Facebook or any other social-networking site written into the non-academic code, said RSU president Nora Loreto, who added that there’s a huge generational struggle at play between students who know how Facebook works and administrators who don’t.
“A lot of attention is being paid to Facebook (in these revisions) and we as students need to be extremely concerned,” added Loreto. “We’re very concerned about the invasiveness of this policy,” she said.
Ryerson’s revised academic code of conduct, policy 60, was reviewed last night. A first draft of the non-academic code of conduct, policy 61, was also discussed.
Last week Loreto called on students to speak out against NADS (non-academic disciplinary suspensions), the previous designation of a non-academic code-of-conduct charge. She did so in her own Facebook group called STOP the NADS, and more than 120 students have joined.
Administration acknowledges that rewriting Facebook and other social-networking groups into the codes has been a tough process, but the sites are so much a part of today’s reality that they must be considered, said Julia Hanigsberg, Ryerson’s general counsel and a member of the review committee.
“I think for all universities, we’re all in a sense playing catch-up to the digital world that impacts all of the ways we study, learn and do business,” she said.
Non-academic misconduct involving Facebook would be if students post anything that directly violates or threatens the Ryerson community.
Last year’s I’m a White Minority at Ryerson group is an example because it associated the university with white power, Loreto said.
Vice-provost of students Zouheir Fawaz said he is surprised and disappointed by the students’ opposition to the draft of the non-academic code because students were participants in the revision process.
We have always had a lot of student participation on this,” he said, adding that at one point, there were more than five student
representatives on the committee of about a dozen people.
Fawaz also said the code is legitimate because any offence will only be pursued if someone complains; this makes it a fair and open process. Anyone who feels threatened or views something as a misconduct can come forward, he said.
“This is not here for Ryerson to start playing the Big Brother role,” he said.
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| Photo by Kaydi Pyette |
| Chris Avenir, 18, faces expulsion for his role on a Facebook group. |
However, CESAR’s student rights co-ordinator Emily Shelton, who has sat on the committees reviewing both policies, said there’s no way every complaint can be weighed equally.
“The fact (that) it’s complaints-driven is also problematic to us,” she said. “It will unnecessarily be implemented in a way that’s not consistent.”
Committee members would not be actively searching for student misconduct on these social-networking sites, Fawaz said.
Ryerson president Sheldon Levy said he believes the university needs to have jurisdiction over sites like Facebook.
“We are not going fishing on Facebook looking for those things. But if (a student) or a staff member complains then we have some responsibility,” he said.
But Kim Neale, the RSU student issues and advocacy co-ordinator, who is representing Avenir in his appeals process, said online lurking has happened. In Avenir’s case, a professor allegedly sought out chemistry-related Facebook pages at Ryerson, found the Dungeon’s Facebook group and reported it.
“That’s totally lurking,” she said. “This is exact proof they were lurking on Facebook.”
Chemistry professors Noel George and Andrew McWilliams refused to comment for this story, stating the case is confidential and ongoing.
The RSU and CESAR are also opposing Ryerson’s decision to create a new paid position of conduct officer, someone who will essentially enforce the code. Hanigsberg said the conduct officer will only help students go through the process more efficiently, not enforce the code with an iron fist.
“There’s no one whose job (it) is to police students. That’s not how I’d characterize it,” she said. “The major issue right now is the director of student services decided on that process and it’s become too big of a job (for her).”
The Senate will vote on the revised codes at its next meeting in April. Meanwhile, Avenir will bring his case before a faculty appeals committee on March 11.
