Upon receipt of a report alleging a student may have violated one or more university regulations/policies, the following steps occur prior to and at an administrative meeting:
Notice of Complaint
A letter will be sent to your student email from conduct@msu.edu indicating a meeting to be attended. This letter will include the following information to be covered during the administrative meeting:
- Notice of allegations (i.e., what regulations/policies are alleged to have been violated)
- An opportunity to learn your rights and responsibilities through the student conduct process
- An opportunity to responde to the allegations, if desired, in an initial meeting
It is strongly recommended this email be read closely with all instructions included followed carefully. Failure to do so may result in a hold on your student account, which will prevent adding or dropping courses.
Administrative Meeting
The initial meeting will be held in the format communicated in the letter (virtually or in person). In this meeting, you will meet with a trained student conduct meeting officer who will help you learn about your rights and responsiblities as a respondent. Together, you and the meeting officer will review the report submission and alleged regulations/policies you would be in violation of if the report as submitted is true. You will have the opportunity to confirm or deny elements of the report. You will also have the opportunity to make decisions regarding how and when you will respond to the alleged regulation/policy violations. Options include:
- Accepting responsibility for one, multiple or all allegations
- Denying responsibility for one, multiple or all allegations
- Requesting five (5) additional class days to consider your response and submit a response in writing
Accepting Responsibility
If you accept responsibility for all allegations, you may select one of the following options to proceed:
- You may ask the meeting officer to recommend appropriate sanction(s), and the matter can be resolved at that time.
- You may request to meet wit a hearing board and have community members recommend appropriate sanction(s).
In either case, you will be asked to reflect on what happened, what you were thinking at the time, what you have thought about since, who has been affected and how and what you can do to make things right. If you have a prior record of misconduct, that will also be discussed before sanctions are determined.
Denying Responsibility
If you deny responsibility for one or more allegations, you may select one of the following options to proceed:
- Schedule a formal hearing with an administrator making a determination regarding responsibility, and if found responsible, recommending appropriate sanction(s).
- Schedule a formal hearing with a hearing board making a determination regarding responsibility, and if found responsible, recommending appropriate sanction(s).
In either case, you will be contacted for hearing scheduling purposes and provided advance notice prior to the hearing occurring. Hearings are generally held virtually via Zoom.