A University Senate committee is planning to urge Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud to ban all sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduate students.

The review, which was conducted by senators on the Women’s Concerns committee and the Academic Freedom, Tenure and Professional Ethics committee, was compiled by the AFTPE chair and sent to the Senate’s email listserv on Thursday afternoon. It will be presented during Wednesday’s Senate meeting.

The proposal comes three months after Syverud publicly announced a review of SU’s policy on sexual relationships between faculty and students. In a January address, Syverud cited the #MeToo movement — an international protest against sexual harassment and assault — as a motivating factor for the review.

Syverud, in a February Senate meeting, said he was “strongly inclined” to support a ban on consensual sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduates “because of the unequal power dynamic.”

Currently, the university’s Faculty Manual bans sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduates if the faculty member advises, supervises or teaches the student. The university also prohibits graduate teaching assistants from entering into sexual relationships with undergraduates they teach, advise or supervise, according to the manual. Relationships between graduate students and any subordinates whose work they supervise are discouraged, rather than banned. SU’s relationship policy was last updated in 2012.

According to the new Senate report, which was written by AFTPE chair and political science professor Thomas Keck, AFTPE urges the chancellor to ban all sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduates, regardless of whether the faculty member teaches, advises or supervises the student.

Several senators said the review was necessary and timely. But they also expressed concern about complications that can arise when determining what constitutes consent between graduate students and professors.

“That becomes a little bit more complicated, because graduate students oftentimes are much older,” said Tom Perreault, a member of the AFTPE committee who directs geography graduates studies in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. “It’s a different kind of relationship.”

Rochelle Ford, a senator and chair of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications’ public relations department, said it can be hard to know whether relationships are consensual or not. The large number of older students attending SU, whether as graduates or part-time students, presents “complicated scenarios” that need to be addressed, Ford said.

Perreault and Ford both said they weren’t aware of specific sexual relationships between faculty and students. But they said such relationships are possible.

The committee will recommend that sexual relationships between faculty and graduate students be “prohibited,” rather than “discouraged,” if the faculty member is in the same department or program as the student, or if the faculty member supervises the student.

AFTPE has also proposed adding language that would prevent graduate students or faculty members from having “evaluative or supervisory authority” over a student they previously had a relationship with.

The recommendations will be discussed at Wednesday’s meeting, where senators will decide whether to accept the policy revisions. The chancellor and his administrative staff will then determine if and how they should implement the changes.

It’s unclear why AFTPE recommends a ban on some, but not all, relationships between graduate students and faculty members. Keck did not respond to a request for comment.

A Senate subcommittee, created to review the policies and present information to the Women’s Concerns and AFTPE committee senators, used existing policies from several of SU’s 16 peer institutions as a basis for its recommendations, according to the report.

Similar to SU’s current policy, most peer institutions only ban consensual relationships between faculty and students when the faculty member has an advisory or supervisory role over a student. Few differentiate between undergraduates and graduates in their relationship policies, and only three — the University of Rochester, the University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University — completely ban relationships between undergraduate students and faculty.

Cornell University, a peer institution, hasn’t updated its policy since 1996. Last December, Cornell President Martha Pollack created a committee to review the university’s policy on faculty-student relationships. Syverud’s charge also came in December, but it wasn’t announced publicly until his annual speech in mid-January.

The Cornell committee released a proposal last month that would ban all romantic or sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduates and relationships in which the faculty member has power over the “academic progress or professional advancement” of any student, whether undergraduate or graduate.

The university’s review noted that it did not include a proposal for how SU should handle relationships between students and non-teaching staff. Notre Dame, Northwestern and Tulane University all specifically ban relationships between undergraduates and athletics staff.

The committee was only able to propose changes to policies regarding “faculty” and students, the report noted, because Syverud’s charge did not include examination of the university’s policy regarding “staff” and student relationships.

AFTPE has recommended that the university’s policies governing relationships between students and staff be “reviewed and updated,” according to the report. The committee has also recommended a review of SU’s policy on relationships between graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates that includes input from graduate students.

Published on April 15, 2018 at 9:26 pm

Contact Casey: [email protected] | @caseydarnell_