Conduct

Queen's University expects all students to adhere to its Conduct Regulations both on and off campus. If a student is suspected of breaching these regulations, the University may decide to investigate the circumstances under the Conduct Regulations.

The process will take a varied amount of time to conclude depending on the circumstances and, on occasion, the time of year.

The Process

• A conduct issue is reported to the University by a student or member of the public
• The University Appeals, Conduct and Complaints team will decide whether the complaint should be investigated.
• It they decide it is then, an Investigation Officer is appointed to investigate
• The student is notified in writing about the complaint
• The Investigating Officer will arrange a meeting with the student and any other necessary parties.
• The student will be asked to submit a statement.
• Investigating Officer will draft a report and may make recommendations.
• The report and statement are passed to a Conduct Officer for a decision.
• The student is notified of the outcome. If a penalty is imposed at this stage, the student can accept the penalty and the process will end. If the student is unhappy with the outcome and wishes to appeal, they can submit an appeal to the Conduct Committee.
• If the case is referred to a Conduct Committee by the Conduct Officer, the student will be notified of a time and date of the hearing, which they will be expected to attend.
• After the hearing, the Committee decide on an outcome and notify the student of this within 8 working days of the decision being made.
• The student may wish to appeal the outcome of the Conduct Committee to the Conduct Appeals Committee (see further on for information on this).

At the initial stage of the investigation, you will be asked to attend a meeting with an investigating officer. This can differ depending on what the issue relates to. They will usually contact you in writing to invite you to the meeting. For the most part, these meetings are to find out the facts of the situation and establish your point of view. After this meeting the Investigating Officer will draft a report and send this to you to confirm the accuracy of the information included. You will often be asked to submit a statement too. SU Advice are happy to advise on this.

Once the statement and report have been sent and checked for accuracy, they are then sent to a Conduct Officer. The Investigating Officer will make recommendations in their report. The Conduct Officer will arrive at a decision and will communicate this to you in writing within eight working days. If the Conduct Officer refers the case to the Conduct Committee an appeal cannot be submitted against this outcome. However, if a penalty is imposed, you are able to submit an appeal to the Conduct Committee yourself.

The offence will either be viewed as a minor or major offence and the penalties available to the Conduct Officer are available within the Conduct Regulations under points 9.2.2 which can be found here.

Appealing to the Conduct Committee

You will usually have ten working days from the date you received the outcome from the Conduct Officer to submit an appeal. There are two grounds under which an appeal can be submitted. If your appeal does not meet either of these grounds it is likely to be rejected. The appeal must be submitted on the appropriate form that can be found here.

The two grounds are:

1. New evidence has become available which could not have been provided to the Conduct Officer.
2. There has been a procedural irregularity in the conduct of the investigation or Conduct Officer hearing which had a demonstrable impact on the decision.

Once your appeal has been submitted or the referral from the Conduct Officer has been received, you will receive an invitation to attend a meeting with the Conduct Committee Panel. The invitation will include all paperwork relative to the case, the names of those who are on the panel, (this will usually be made up of three members of staff and a Student Officer from the Students’ Union) and notify you of your right to be accompanied to the meeting.

Cases where the Conduct Committee has been convened as the result of an appeal, the outcome available will be one of the following:

1. To uphold the appeal in full or in part, and rescind the penalty imposed by the Conduct Officer in full or, where deemed appropriate, impose a different penalty;
2. To dismiss the appeal and confirm the penalty imposed by the Conduct Officer.

Cases where the meeting has been convened due to a referral from a Conduct Officer can result in a number of outcomes which are available under 10.1.3 here.

You will be notified of the Conduct Committee’s decision within eight working days of this being made. This is not always eight working days from the date of the meeting.

If you are unhappy with the outcome from the Conduct Committee and wish to appeal this further, there is an additional appeal stage available under the Conduct Regulations.

An appeal can be submitted to the Student Conduct Appeals Committee within ten working days  under one of the following grounds:

1. New evidence has become available which could not have been provided to the Conduct Committee.
2. There has been a procedural irregularity in the conduct of the investigation or the Conduct Committee proceedings which had a demonstrable impact on the decision.

This Committee will again be made up of a new panel comprising both staff and a Student Officer. None of whom will have had any previous involvement in your case. The Chair from the previous Conduct Committee will be asked to attend the meeting too to make the panel aware of why they arrived at the original decision and imposed the penalty they decided upon.

The appeal must be submitted using the appropriate form found here.

At all times you are expected to be completely honest throughout the process, dishonesty can lead to further conduct offences and ultimately make the situation far worse for you.

We recommend getting advice from SU Advice as soon as possible if you are contacted regarding an allegation of misconduct. We can advise on the process and support you throughout.

For advice email su.advice@qub.ac.uk