RSC recognizes that instances of communicable infectious disease may require students to follow additional institutional policies to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the entire RSC community. The Vice President for Student Life or designee reserves the right to activate special provisions with respect to communicable diseases, for all or part of a semester or academic year, based on regional, national, and global circumstances, to help mitigate the spread of disease.
The College may implement reasonable health and safety measures consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws and public health guidance. Depending on the circumstances, such measures may include, but are not limited to, the use of face coverings or other personal protective measures, physical distancing, temporary modifications to instructional operations, isolation or exclusion from campus when appropriate, vaccination or testing requirements where legally permissible, and communication of relevant health information and guidance to the College community.
The College will assess the need for such measures based on the nature and severity of the communicable disease, public health recommendations, operational considerations, and applicable legal requirements. Measures may be implemented, modified, or discontinued as conditions change. The College will strive to provide reasonable notice and clear guidance regarding any measures that affect members of the campus community.
All students are expected to comply with such provisions, including those who reside on campus and commuter students. Required stipulations may cover student accountability both on and off campus.
Communicable diseases are defined as an infectious disease transmissible from person to person by direct contact with an affected individual or the individual's bodily fluids, or by indirect means (as by a vector). The Wellness Center is a resource for protecting and treating students from infectious disease and will work with area resources (CDC, State and local health departments, etc.) to triage and deliver care in the manner appropriate to a specific illness/disease.
RSC subscribes to the ideal that resolutions for conflict should be as unique as the types of incidents and students involved. To this end, a spectrum of alternative resolutions has been adopted to promote resolution at the lowest level possible. These alternative resolutions include the following:
1. No Conflict Management
Administration intentionally refrains from initiating involvement in a campus conflict to make space for student learning achieved by direct and independent engagement in an emerging issue.
2. Dialogue
Students engage in a conversation to gain understanding or to manage a conflict independent of administrator intervention or third-party facilitation.
3. Conflict Coaching
Students seek out counsel and guidance from administration to engage a conflict more effectively and independently.
4. Facilitated Dialogue
Students access administration for facilitation services to engage in a conversation to gain understanding or to manage a conflict. In a facilitated dialogue, parities maintain ownership of decisions concerning the conversation or any resolution of a conflict.
5. Mediation
Students access administration to serve as a third party to coordinate a structured session aimed at resolving a conflict and/or constructing a go-forward or future story for the parties involved.
6. Restorative Practices
Through a diversion program or as an addition to the adjudication process, administration provides space and facilitation services for students taking ownership for harmful behavior and those parties affected by the behavior to jointly construct an agreement to restore community.
a. Restorative Circles
The goal of restorative circles is to restore the sense of peace and community, to defuse tensions and conflicts, and to explore mutual responsibility and impact. Restorative circles can also be used to negotiate rules of engagement between individuals or groups.
b. Check-In Circles
Check-in circles may be useful for students in recovery programs or who are healing from trauma. It is a communication tool that allows group members to check in with one another on how they are doing with the recovery process. It differs from group therapy in that no one provides therapy or has greater power than any of the others in the circle. Members provide mutual support as well as share observations and concerns about each other.
Check-in circles can also be used in smaller communities, like residence hall floors or living units, to ensure that any lingering concerns, hurts, resentments, and other emotions after an incident are attended so that there is peace.
7. Shuttle Diplomacy
Administration actively negotiates an agreement between two parties who do not wish to directly engage with one another. This method may be an alternative to a formal adjudication process or part of the process associated with the conduct code.
Schrage, J. M., & Giacomini, N. G. (Eds.). (2020). Reframing Campus Conflict: student conduct practice through the lens (2nd ed.). STYLUS Publishing.