EMU Resources for Writing

Academic Accountability Policy

Policy

In accordance with EMU mission, vision, and life together statements, we expect academic integrity of all members of the community. Responses to violations of academic integrity are detailed below.

Context

Eastern Mennonite University fosters a culture where faculty, staff, and students respect themselves and others. In this culture, faculty, staff, and students gain confidence in their desire and ability to communicate concepts, construct new knowledge, and think critically about their own and others’ ideas. In doing so, EMU community members grow as competent thinkers and writers.

EMU faculty and staff care about the integrity of their own work and the work of their students. They work intentionally with students during the learning process, creating assignments that promote interpretative thinking. Honesty, integrity, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility are characteristics of a community that is active in loving mercy, doing justice, and walking humbly before God.

At EMU, academic accountability means that community members are accountable to themselves, their colleagues (fellow students or fellow instructors), the university, and the fields of study in which they engage. To be academically accountable means to be able to give a transparent account of the academic work that we do. It means that we “leave tracks” and create trails so that others may learn where we started and how we ended up where we are.

A transparent account for academic work involves producing and submitting one’s own work in papers, essays, projects, quizzes and tests; correctly and consistently acknowledging sources used; factually representing research results, one’s credentials, and facts or opinions; and appropriately documenting use of technology.

Informed use: as much as possible, students, faculty and staff should be generative AI (gAI) “literate”

know how gAI systems work
gAI is ubiquitous and increasing in options
gAI systems are associated with common applications and tools
gAI can be good for tasks such as outlines, brainstorming, checking grammar, spelling, and/ or style

Ethical and Responsible use: as much as possible, students, faculty and staff should understand limitations, benefits, and risks of gAI

Consider privacy and unequal access to gAI tools
Information should not be submitted to an AI system unless you expect it to be publicly available and you own it
gAI systems may be poorly referenced and/or the content may be unattributed to the original copyright owner
Bias exists in the data and output
gAI can “hallucinate” and may provide untrue information (fact checks are required)
gAI searches have climate impacts (electricity and water usage)

Examples of violations of EMU’s Academic Accountability Policy are below. Additional examples of violations are available in this document.

Not providing appropriate documentation to all information, ideas, and quotations taken from any source, including anything online;
Using resources such as notes, textbooks, online resources when not authorized by the instructor;
Giving or receiving unauthorized assistance to or from another person, face to face or electronically on or during or after a quiz or test;
Falsifying research results, withholding data, misrepresenting facts;
Presenting material as one’s own from a site that sells essays or generates them for you (generative AI);
Frequently committing violations within a single document or repeatedly over time;
Using Google Translator, generative AI (gAI) or other software to translate work from one’s native language to the language of instruction and submitting the work as one’s own work; or
Recycling one’s own previous work without proper citation and securing the instructor’s approval.

Faculty should clearly describe allowances for generative AI usage on specific assignments on the spectrum of
- Free usage (no acknowledgment, documentation, or citation needed to use generative AI on this assignment)
- Fully prohibited (The assignment must be completed without assistance from others, including generative AI tools)
- Middle positions

Academic Accountability Procedures

The following procedure is appropriate for use in undergraduate and graduate settings.

When an instructor observes or suspects that an episode of academic misconduct has occurred, the process below should be followed. NOTE: The Academic Accountability Representative (AAR) is the director of the Academic Success Center and acts as a process facilitator. Instructors are mandated to contact the AAR about possible academic misconduct to the AAR.

The instructor contacts the AAR to discuss their observations and to share further details of the episode and any documentation of alleged violation. They decide whether or not to initiate a formal process.
Together, they (AAR & Instructor) explore possible reasons for the incident, plan for the instructor to converse with the student to understand each others’ perspectives, and explore possible avenues for accountability. If the AAR and instructor conclude that no violation has occurred, the instructor will inform the student and copy the AAR;
Otherwise, the instructor meets with the student. (Sometimes, when the instructor meets with the student, this is the moment when the student and instructor resolve the issue without further involvement with the AAR.)
If the instructor and AAR have decided that a formal process is needed, the instructor informs the student about the concern (the paper submitted, the test taken) and that they will be consulting with the university AAR to initiate a formal process and will inform the student of the consultation results.
The instructor completes a form reporting their concerns, which goes automatically to the AAR.
The AAR checks on any prior episodes for this student. (AAR has access to all previous reports.)
The AAR arranges a meeting with the student to occur within 2 business days. During this meeting, the student is in a safe place where privacy is ensured. The student is encouraged to share what happened. The AAR listens, asking prompting questions as appropriate. Ultimately, the AAR is seeking moments of learning, of redemption for the student, of restoration of the relationship between student and instructor.

The AAR reports to the instructor the pertinent details of the meeting with the student. The AAR will record notes of the meetings with instructor and student(s);
The AAR will set up a planning meeting with the AAR, instructor, and student within 7 business days and inform the parties. The student will be informed that they may invite a trusted support person to this meeting if they choose;
In the case that an accountability process extends beyond the last day of the course, the instructor will record an “Incomplete” grade for the course.

The AAR/Instructor/Student meeting will include the following:

The AAR will briefly explain the purpose of the meeting and facilitate decisions about ground rules;
The student will explain their actions and what led up to those actions (What happened? What were you thinking at the time?);
The instructor will explain their observations and concerns (What happened? What were you thinking at the time?);
The instructor and student will discuss possible actions to remedy the situation and prevent its recurrence (What have you thought about since? What could make it right? What could keep it from happening again in the same way?);
As appropriate on a case-by-case basis, the instructor and student will write and sign a detailed action plan to include dates and responsibilities of all parties. The plan should include due dates and the responsibilities of both parties.

The AAR will record all meetings with student and instructor, including the Action Plan in the Maxient case file and arrange further instruction if necessary.
Shortly before the Action Plan is due, AAR will check in with the student and instructor to monitor progress.
Once the Action Plan has been carried out and/or the situation has been resolved, the AAR will update the case notes to reflect this completion, and close the case in Maxient.
The instructor will replace any Incomplete grades with final grades.

Complications

If the instructor and student cannot agree on an Action Plan
1. The AAR will meet with the student and the instructor separately to evaluate points of disagreement and to develop potential solutions. The AAR will facilitate a meeting where both parties discuss the issues and proposed solutions.
2. If the student and instructor cannot agree on an Action Plan after these individual meetings, the dean of the instructor’s school in collaboration with the Dean of Students will identify an Action Plan or grade consequence.
If the Action Plan is not satisfactorily completed by the student

The instructor may assign a failing grade to the assignment or test in question.
Failure to complete the Action Plan will be recorded in the case notes in Maxient.

Repeated violations with accompanying failure to complete Action Plans

If the student fails to complete multiple action plans, a Letter of Probation, or Letter of Indefinite Suspension/Disciplinary Withdrawal may be issued. The AAR and school dean will determine these responses and the dean will carry out the response.
If the instructor assigns a student an F for the course, the student will not be allowed to withdraw from the course. The student is prohibited from attending class after the professor assigns the F grade. The course continues to apply towards the number of credits the student is pursuing that semester.

Student Appeal

The student will submit an appeal form to the Provost in writing within five (5) working days following notification of the Academic Accountability report. The student may wish to work with their academic advisor or a Student Life staff member to complete the Appeal form. The student will send the completed form to the Provost.

Reasons for the appeal must be clearly stated and based on at least one of the following:

Significant and relevant new evidence;
Alleged procedural error that may have affected the decision; or
Unduly harsh and arbitrary consequences of the academic accountability violation
The Instructor, AAR, or other institutional representative did not follow through on the agreed upon plan.

On the basis of these factors, the provost will review the appeal and, in consultation with the AAR, make a decision to uphold or modify the academic accountability violation record. The Provost will communicate the decision to the student in writing within five (5) days after the receipt of the appeal. The decision is final.

Documentation

- Students who receive any type of academic accountability violation will have it documented in an internal record keeping system at EMU. This system is confidential with limited access.
- Academic accountability violations/probation/suspensions are never part of a student’s official EMU transcript.
- Academic accountability violations will not prevent admission into any academic major at EMU.
- Academic accountability violations are not part of any student life recommendation for students transferring to another university.
- A review of academic accountability violations - in particular, reports marked “incomplete” - may be included when students are considered for student leadership positions, academic honors, participation in cross-cultural opportunities and recommendation for students transferring to another university.
- Academic accountability violations that are egregious and broad in scope may have more serious consequences, including a letter of academic conduct probation and/or a letter of indefinite academic conduct suspension/withdrawal.
- Students who have repeat academic accountability violations may receive a letter of academic conduct probation. This letter serves as official notification that additional academic conduct violations may warrant a letter of indefinite academic conduct suspension.

Responsible Party

The provost is responsible for this policy.

Policy Review

This policy is reviewed annually.

Policy Distribution

Undergraduate, Graduate and Seminary Catalogs, Undergraduate, Graduate, Seminary and Lancaster Student Handbooks.

Reviewed by Undergraduate Council, Graduate Council, and Faculty Senate
Approved by Academic Cabinet, March 25, 2009 and revised October 6, 2010
Revised by Academic Cabinet, February 26, 2013
Revised by Academic Cabinet, November 19, 2014
Revised by Provost’s Council, December 16, 2015
Revised by Graduate Council, April 1, 2019 and approved by Provost’s Council, April 10, 2019
Revised by task force and approved by Provost’s Council, May 4, 2021
Revised by Provost’s Council, January 19, 2023 and December 12, 2023

Academic Success Center

Hartzler Library, 3rd floor

Cathy Smeltzer Erb, Director, (540) 432-4638

Web: emu.edu/academics/success/

The Academic Success Center is an academic support and enrichment resource for all students. Staff and peer tutors are available for course-specific tutoring, writing and math support, and study skill and time management coaching. Group tutoring is offered upon request.

The Office of Academic Access, located in the Academic Success Center, counsels and serves as advocates for students with disabilities or chronic disorders to provide reasonable accommodations.

Students may drop in or make appointments on Navigate. All services are free.

Inclusive Community-Creating Policy

Preamble:

Language use is a social practice that can include or exclude people. At EMU, we recognize that all human beings are persons of infinite worth created equally in the image of God. Accordingly, we recognize that the language we use to speak about each other is no negligible matter but one of crucial importance. The words by which we name and address each other are used to recognize each other mutually and to empower each other to live out our potential.

Policy:

Eastern Mennonite University expects all its faculty, staff, and students to adopt inclusive communication for everyone, e.g. race or ethnicity, gender, disabilities, age, and sexual orientation. We will use respectful language in all our official university documents i, including those put forth by way of Internet communication, and throughout all academic coursework, inclusive of classroom presentations and conversations, course syllabi, and both written and oral student assessment materials.

Considerations:

This policy does not attempt to cover all social practices that can create openness and hospitality or alienation and closing off of community. The focus of the policy is on language use within the EMU community of teaching, classroom discussions, research design and worship.
This policy does not apply to personal conversations, although we encourage attentiveness to inclusive language use there as well.
This policy does attempt to demonstrate current best academic practices; we recognize that acceptable academic language, living and continuously changing, includes some practices (e. g., the use of professional titles) that are locally contested. For examples, see the Best Practices for Inclusive Language in the Faculty Procedures for specific ways to practice this policy.
Language should emphasize the agency of those who are being discussed. Even prior to writing, academic research needs to include reliable and valid data and the voices and perspectives of the groups or individuals under consideration. Best academic practices are defined as ones that include diverse individuals and groups, enabling us to see people as full humans without drawing attention to irrelevant or stereotypical differences.

See the Inclusive Communication Best Practices for a guide within the EMU community.

Responsible Party

The provost is responsible for this policy.

Policy Review

This policy is reviewed every three years.

Policy Distribution

Employee Handbook

Approved by Provost’s Council, April 26, 2017
Approved by President’s Cabinet, May 10, 2017
Revised and approved by Provost's Council, March 14, 2023
Approved by President's Cabinet, April 19, 2023

Inclusive Community-Creating Best Practices

We are called to be aware of our own social locations and what they enable us to see—but also what we are likely to miss. Language usage outside of the academy may vary, as may usage according to whether the arena is public or private, formal or informal. The examples below assume the use of English.

Try to keep a person’s full identity as a human being in the forefront, rather than reducing an individual to one characteristic or part of that person’s identity.

Avoid redundant or irrelevant use of gendered, or racial or other referents. For example, speak of persons with disabilities rather than disabled persons or the disabled. Speak of undocumented persons rather than illegal persons. Avoid labeling a person with an illness or a mental illness. A person is not an illness. Speak to the person first, and then the illness. For example, speak of persons with mentally ill experiences or challenges or diagnosis; not a bipolar person, but persons living with bipolar disorder; not drug/alcohol abusers but persons with substance use challenges; not a diabetic but persons with diabetes

Draw attention to a person’s gender, race, occupation, age, sexual orientation or other identifying characteristic only if it is relevant to the situation at hand.

Typically discussion of an individual’s physical characteristics tends to reinforce stereotypes or turn groups into sexualized beings rather than fully human persons. For example, avoid emphasizing women’s physical features or reproductive capacities outside of relevant contexts. Do not assume that women function primarily as caregivers (or that men do not). In all cases, ask: Are the characteristics described truly relevant to the situation under discussion?

Use the terms that those you are discussing will use to describe themselves to others, recognizing that such terms may change over time.

For example, use Inuit rather than Eskimo. However, be aware of euphemistic language that individuals and groups use to hide realities. For instance, use genocide rather than ethnic cleansing.

Use symmetry when discussing pairs of groups.

For example, when referring to adult humans, use women and men rather than girls and men (This example is given to show how women are often described in language that confers childlike, rather than adult characteristics. However, this example also assumes binary gender characteristics and therefore human is preferred to women and men). Use Ms. Janet Chao and Mr. Thomas Jones, or Chao and Jones, not Janet and Jones.

Avoid assuming that men are the norm or standard, and others are exceptions.

Typically, use humankind rather than mankind, human rather than man, and artificial or unnatural rather than manmade. Use chairperson rather than chairman, First-year student rather than freshman. Take note of when and how statistics and standards were created. For example, height and weight charts used to measure obesity are often based on an average of men taken in the 1950s. Is it then fair to measure women as obese or overweight using these measures?

Avoid assuming that white people are the norm or standard, and others are exceptions.

For example, be aware of terms like real Americans or the use of we, us and our when only white people are meant.

Use gender-neutral pronouns

Gender-neutral pronouns (s/he, her/him, zie, hir) are preferred to he when talking about a group of people that includes men, women and non-gender-identifying persons. Often using a plural rather than a singular sentence construction will enable a smoother read. Use plural gender-neutral pronouns (they, them, their) instead of singular forms to avoid awkward constructions.

Does the language used retain agency for the persons you are talking about?

Survivors is preferred to victims. Use “uses a wheelchair” rather than “is confined to a wheelchair” and only if wheelchair use is relevant to the topic.

Use titles, or not, based on the culture of the society in which a person is living or visiting.

Formal titles may be proper in a society or setting that is more structured, and titles may be viewed as unnecessary in a society that is less formal.

“Communicate across cultures: Recognize what you consider ‘normal.’ Examine your own customary behaviors and assumptions, and think about how they may affect what you think and say (and write). Listen closely to someone from another culture, and ask for clarification if necessary. Carefully define your terms. Think about your audience’s expectations. How much authority should you have? What kind of evidence will count most with your audience? Organize your writing with your audience’s expectations in mind. If in doubt, use formal style” (Lunsford, TEW, 2017, p. 276).*

“Consider other kinds of difference: Age, Class, Geographical area, Physical ability or health, Religion, and Sexual orientation” (see Lunsford, TEW, 2017, pp 284-285 for explanations).*
Refer to the “Language” section of The Everyday Writer (EMU’s writing handbook) for additional discussion.

Use materials from groups who experience marginalization…

…in teaching, classroom discussions, research design and worship.

Due to the rapidly changing nature of best practices, please contact the Provost’s Office with suggestions for revisions to this document.

Reprinted by permission of the publishers from The Everyday Writer, 6th edition, Andrea A. Lunsford (NYC: Bedford St. Martin’s). Copyright 2017.

Library

Sadie A. Hartzler Library

Web: emu.edu/library
Phone: 540-432-4175

Library staff provide guidance in identifying, finding, using and citing materials for your presentations, papers, and other creative work. The library provides access to articles, books, journals, video and sound recordings--either electronically, on-site, or through loan from other libraries.

Computers, wireless access, copiers and printers are available on all three floors.

Please present your EMU ID when checking out materials. For more information about library holdings and policies, see the library web site (www.emu.edu/library).

The building is located in the southeast corner of the campus at 1195 Park Road. The library entrance is on the north side of the building.

Regular hours during the school year are as follows. Check on the web for updates.

Monday-Thursday 7:45 a.m. – 11:30 p.m.
Friday 7:45 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sunday 2:00 p.m. – 11:30 p.m.

The library building houses the Menno Simons Historical Library, Academic Success Center, Information Systems Helpdesk, classrooms, the EMU Archives, Virginia Mennonite Conference Archives and the JAMAR Suite (LB-121) which has its own outside entrance.

Special Collections

EMU’s Special Collections include materials from the history of EMU, the Virginia Mennonite Conference, and the worldwide Anabaptist/Mennonite experience. The Menno Simons Historical Library contains family history and genealogy, Shenandoah Valley history, and Anabaptist/Mennonite materials. The EMU Archives house EMU’s organizational records and files, including material from persons who have been associated with EMU throughout its history. The Virginia Mennonite Conference Archives houses historical documents relating to the conference, including official records, personal papers, congregational materials, and the records of Eastern Mennonite School.

The Menno Simons Historical Library is the point of contact for all special collections materials and for assistance with your research. The library is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Please call 432-4178 or e-mail archives@emu.edu.

Writing Strategies for ‘English as a Second Language’ Students

Your tutoring session will begin with your tutor explaining our policy to you:
- Our primary goal is to help you gain and strengthen the ability to revise and edit your own papers.
- You are encouraged to make regular appointments at the Academic Success Center. Don’t wait until the day before the paper’s due to hand in a perfect paper! In a 45 min. tutoring session, you may only have time to examine the first two or three paragraphs of your paper. Think seriously about setting up appointments with your tutor several weeks in advance of a paper’s due date.
Your tutor will very consciously make a distinction between global concerns and local concerns in the paragraph, addressing the global concerns first and addressing the local concerns only after the global concerns have been dealt with. The tutor will ask these questions:
- What is the specific writing assignment?
- How much work has the student put into the paper so far? Is this a very rough first draft or a second or third draft?
- What is the writer’s purpose?
- Who is the audience envisioned for the paper?
- Is the paper well-organized and readable?
Your tutor will take turns reading the first few paragraphs with you, working on one paragraph at a time. The tutor is trying to determine whether or not the paper “flows” and has a “fluid reading.”
You, the student, are the only person who will write on your paper. Your tutor will not mark your paper.
After the tutor has worked with you on a paragraph, the tutor will most likely ask you to work on the next paragraph alone. The tutor is close by to advise you as needed.
You will learn to use the Longman Dictionary of American English to assist in identification and in explanation of the error. You may also use the online Newbury House advanced learner’s dictionary.
You will keep an error log. The tutor will assist you in starting an error log. On subsequent visits, the tutor will ask to see the error log and help you to see the connection between logging errors and becoming more accomplished at self-editing. You will need to keep this up-to-date so that you become more aware of the issues in writing that are problems for you.
You will learn to use the self-editing checklist as one more way to help you learn to revise and edit your own papers. Your tutor will assist you in this process.