Case Management Policy for Student Development

Purpose

The St. Mary’s University Office of Residence Life and the Office of Student Integrity and Welfare shall establish and maintain an effective and efficient system of case management for reported student issues, to include alleged violations of law and/or University policy

Procedure

1. Case Numbers: St. Mary’s University uses the Maxient student conduct database to manage the institution’s behavioral conduct records. Case numbers are created from individual incident reports in the following sequence:
   1. Maxient assigns a sequential number to each incident report in the order that the report is submitted. One or more of these incident reports is used to create a case file for the students involved in the incident.
   2. Once a case file is created, Maxient automatically generates a file number from a combination of the academic year the case was created and the number of individual cases filed during that year. As an example, the first case created in Maxient for the 2015-2016 academic years would be assigned the case number 20150001.
   3. Individual student records attached to a Maxient case file are numbered in sequence and identified within the file by this number. For example, if two students were involved in the first incident of the academic year, the first student would be assigned an individual case number of 2015000101, and the second student would be assigned a case number of 2015000102
2. Incident Reports Submission: Residence Life staff are trained to consider each incident report (IR) as a legal and formal document that can be used in a court of law. Since IRs serve as written accounts for critical events, it is important that the contents of an IR are presented in a clear, concise, factual, and unbiased manner. Residence Life staff members are instructed to create an incident report for a wide variety of campus incidents to include, but not limited to, the following categories:
   • Violations of law
   • Violation of University Policies, Rules, and Regulations
   • Any incident involving police (UPD or SAPD), fire department, ambulance, or any other emergency services
   • Threats to self or others
   • Property damage
   • Serious disruption of the community
   • Concerning behavior
   • University Police will be contacted by the Director on Duty (DOD) and/or a Resident Assistant (RA) for assistance in handling and reporting the following incidents:
   • Medical emergency or life threatening situation
   • Student or guest death in or near a residential facility
   • Suspected or actual illegal drug/controlled substance violation
   • Suspected or actual domestic or physical violence
   • Suspected or actual hate crime
   • Suspected or actual dating or other physical violence
   • Suspected or actual sexual assault
   • Suspected or actual weapons violation
   • Suspected or actual illegal alcohol violations
   • Reported or actual fire in or near a residence hall
   • All other incidents will be reported by the RA to the DOD, who will then decide whether the University Police Department should be contacted for assistance with handling and reporting the incident.
3. Case Management: Once Incident reports have been submitted into Maxient, the Assistant Director of Student Integrity and Welfare (or their designee) is responsible for creating a Maxient case and virtual case file that will serve as the single source of documentation for the investigation, adjudication, and resolution of each reported incident. Once this case file has been created, the following rules are used to route cases for additional review:
   1. Cases that represent a possible violation of University policy are routed to the Assistant Director of Student Integrity and Welfare for review and resolution, according to the policies and procedures found in the University’s Code of Student Conduct.
   2. Cases that contain potential violations of the University’s Equal Opportunity, Nondiscrimination, Sexual and Other Forms of Harassment policy are forwarded to the University’s Vice President and Dean of Students, who serves at the Deputy Title IX Coordinator, and CCed to the University Title IX Coordinator. These cases are managed according to the University’s Equity Discrimination Resolution Process (EDRP) for resolving allegations of harassment and discrimination.
   3. Cases generated from incident reports related to student wellness concerns are routed to the Dean of Students, the Executive Director, Student Health and Wellness Programs and, for on-campus residents, the Assistant Dean of Residence Life.
   4. Cases from incident reports which only document violations of Residence Life policy are forwarded to the Area Coordinator of the building where the incident occurred for review and resolution.

Information contained in each created case file may include, but not be limited to:

• All related incident reports received from Residence Life, University Police Department, local law enforcement agencies, or other members of the StMU community
• Scanned copies of original statements, IR supplements, photographs, texts, email, or other supporting documentation related to the case
• Any charge letter presented to the student(s) which specifies the alleged violation(s) of the Code of Student Conduct or other University policies or local, state, or federal law
• Any interim responsive actions (such as “no contact” orders, interim suspension notices, etc.) issued to the student while the misconduct allegation(s) are under review
• Any record of the process used by St. Mary’s to resolve the specific allegations under review
• Any letters of appeals filed by the accused student(s) with regard to any findings of responsibility or sanctions assigned, to include the University’s response to the appeal
• In cases adjudicated under the EDRP, the file will also contain documentation of any steps taken to address identified campus climate issues related to the incident(s) under review