Rise in misconduct at U of M a sign of stressful times, discipline chair says Academic cheating, COVID rule-breaking account for most issues By: Maggie Macintosh Posted: 7:00 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023

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This article was published 16/02/2023 (979 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The University of Manitoba has issued 20 fines of $100 or more, evicted three students from campus residences and pulled one individual out of a practicum in response to COVID-19 policy breaches since the pandemic began.

The post-secondary institute’s latest disciplinary report was published earlier this month, and its contents show the total number of academic and non-academic issues reported every school year has risen significantly since March 2020.

The five-year average of annual incidents was 775 between 2014-15 and 2018-19. That figure is now 1,082 — an increase of 40 per cent.

Sheryl Zelenitsky, chairwoman of the university discipline committee, attributes the surge in misconduct to heightened stress levels and a sudden pivot to online exams conducted in isolation in student homes.

“Teaching and learning, neither were optimal during (2020, 2021 or 2022),” said Zelenitsky, a professor in U of M’s college of pharmacy.

“We know that COVID has had significant effects on students… but it is also important for us to maintain the academic integrity of the university,” she said, adding non-academic rule-breakers impact how the school functions and the well-being of everyone on campus.

The committee’s 2021-22 report states there was a spike in residence breaches, despite reduced dorm capacity.

In addition to violations of mask-wearing and public-health gathering limits — the majority of which were met with verbal and written warnings — there was a spike in indoor smoking and unsanitary rooms. Residents were spending more time in their rooms overall due to a combination of the pandemic and a particularly frigid winter, the new report notes.

University staff issued six fines of $100 each and 14 separate $200 charges to residents who repeatedly broke COVID-19 rules, citing violations of the community standards that students agree to when they move-in.

“The residence adviser’s job is to try to build a community and (that is tricky) when you’re trying to tell people for the 15th time in a day to wear their masks,” said Anna Shypilova, who lived in residence last year and now works at Pembina Hall.

Shypilova said security officers started enforcing mask-wearing inside residences after a challenging fall semester, during which advisers had attempted to deal with the breaches but faced pushback; students have not had to wear masks in most areas of society since last March, when the province removed mandates and other restrictions.

U of M’s indoor mask mandate is one of few that remains intact in the city and compliance is waning — especially in libraries, hallways and other common areas.

Faculty association president Orvie Dingwall said fewer people appear to be following the rules as a result of pandemic fatigue, an end to mandates elsewhere and the decision by provincial officials to stop the release of virus statistics.

“It can’t and won’t last forever. It’s about determining the right time (to end it), based on science, not popular opinion and not what anyone else is doing,” the union leader said.

U of M’s overall discipline rate in 2021-22 was four per 100 students, up from a pre-pandemic average of 2.6, but a constant is that academic wrongdoing continues to far outweigh non-academic problems. Inappropriate collaboration and cheating each accounted for about a third of all 1,127 incidents that fell into the former category last year.

Among the concerns, one learner was alleged to have hired an exam taker, multiple students were caught with cellphones on hand during finals and three students wrote a test together and submitted similar responses from the same IP address.

“It can’t and won’t last forever. It’s about determining the right time (to end it), based on science, not popular opinion and not what anyone else is doing.”–Orvie Dingwall, UMFA president

Zelenitsky said instructors have been teaching students more about academic misconduct, making proactive assessment changes and using proctoring software in response to the heightened number of incidents in recent years.

Discipline committee members are curious to see numbers following the current school year, she said, noting 2022-23 marks the first full year of in-person instruction since the global health crisis was declared.

Last year’s non-academic misconduct consisted of 115 cases of abusing university policies, 11 instances of actual harm or threats of it, three occurrences of inappropriate or disruptive behaviour and one event during which a student damaged school property.

One student was found to be displaying “partial nudity in Zoom calls” and conducting themselves inappropriately towards peers. The subsequent punishment involved a semester-long suspension from taking courses.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie