EMU Policies for Catalog

Eastern Mennonite University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any legally protected status. As a religious institution, EMU expressly reserves its rights, its understandings of, and its commitments to the historic Anabaptist identity and the teachings of Mennonite Church USA, and reserves the legal right to hire and employ individuals who support the values of the university.

EMU’s designated coordinator for matters related to the nondiscrimination statement is the university provost.

Updated by Board of Trustees July 16, 2015

In accordance with the requirement of the Title IX Education Amendments of 1972, EMU's designated Title IX coordinator shall be responsible for coordinating the university's compliance with its responsibilities under Title IX. "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

For more information regarding Title IX policies and procedures, go to https://emu.edu/titleix/. If you have questions contact our Campus Response Coordinator, Venissa White, at (540)432-4133 or titleixcoordinator@emu.edu.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) affords students certain rights with respect to their education records. These rights include:

1. The right to inspect and review the student’s education records within 45 days of the day the university receives a request for access.
   Students should submit to the university registrar a written request that identifies the records(s) they wish to inspect. The registrar will make arrangements for access and notify the student of the time and place where the records may be inspected. If the records are not maintained by the university registrar’s office, the registrar shall advise the student of the correct official to whom the request should be addressed. 
   
   
2. The right to request the amendment of the student’s education records that the student believes is inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise in violation of the student’s privacy rights under FERPA.
   A student who wishes to ask the university to amend a record should write the university official responsible for the record, clearly identify the part of the record the student wants changed, and specify why it should be changed. If the university decides not to amend the record as requested, the university will notify the student in writing of the decision and the student’s right to a hearing regarding the request for amendment. Additional information regarding the hearing procedures will be provided to the student when notified of the right to a hearing.
   
   
3. The right to provide written consent before the university discloses personally identifiable information from the student’s education records, except to the extent that FERPA authorizes disclosure without consent.
   The university discloses education records without a student’s prior written consent under the FERPA exception for disclosure to school officials with legitimate educational interests. A school official is defined as a person employed by the university in an administrative, supervisory, academic or research, or support staff position (including law enforcement unit personnel and health staff); a person or company with whom the university has contracted as its agent to provide a service instead of using university employees or officials (such as an attorney, auditor, or collection agent); a person serving on the Board of Trustees; or a student serving on an official committee, such as a disciplinary or grievance committee, or assisting another school official in performing his or her tasks.
   
   A school official has a legitimate educational interest if the official needs to review an education record in order to fulfill his or her professional responsibilities for the university.
   
   
4. The right to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education concerning alleged failures by the university to comply with the requirements of FERPA.
   The name and address of the office that administers FERPA is:
   Family Policy Compliance Office
   U.S. Department of Education
   400 Maryland Avenue, SW
   Washington DC 20202-5920
   
   

Directory Information

Eastern Mennonite University’s current definition of directory information is listed below in accordance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 as amended.

Directory information may be unconditionally released to the public without the consent of the student, unless he/she has specifically asked that prior consent be obtained before releasing such information. Directory information includes:

1. • a student’s name
   • enrollment status (full-time or part-time)
   • date of birth
   • programs of study
   • participation in officially recognized activities and sports
   • weight and height of members of athletic teams
   • dates of attendance
   • degrees, awards, and honors (including Dean’s List and graduation honors) received
   • the most recent previous educational institution attended by the student
   • student level (first-year, sophomore, etc.)
   • degree sought and anticipated graduation date
   • photograph

Students will be notified each year by the university registrar’s office as to what is considered directory information.

Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) is committed to establishing and maintaining a community rich in equality and free from all forms of discrimination and harassment. As an institution rooted in the values of Christian discipleship, community, service, and peacebuilding; EMU commits itself to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct. Relationship violence and sexual misconduct are prohibited at EMU. Relationship violence and sexual misconduct are community issues and can only be prevented through active community participation.      

As a Christian institution of higher education, EMU affirms that relationship violence and sexual misconduct is harmful to the individuals involved as well as to the campus community. Furthermore, instances of relationship violence and sexual misconduct are often experienced as trauma and can thus have lasting impacts even many years after the originating event/incident. EMU recognizes that healing from sexual violence is a process that often takes time, resources, and empathic support.  Many individuals in the university community are survivors of multiple forms of trauma, including historical trauma, repeated victimization, marginalization, discrimination, and other forms of violence. EMU seeks to ground this policy and procedures within this awareness and understanding.

The university will take prompt and equitable action to eliminate relationship violence and sexual misconduct, prevent its recurrence, and repair the harm that has been caused. When the conduct has a propensity to create a hostile, manipulative, or coercive environment on campus, the university obligates itself to respond in support of victims/survivors, the campus community, and others who have been impacted. EMU commits itself to proactively build a campus community that prioritizes health and safety. The university strives to achieve this by ensuring the safety of those who have been harmed, holding accountable those who have done harm, and addressing the root causes of relationship violence and sexual misconduct.

EMU commits itself to the prevention of relationship violence and sexual misconduct, and commits itself to response efforts that are focused in the following ways: through policies that reflect EMU values and meet federal and state guidelines, a response procedure that is clear and supportive, ongoing sexual violence prevention and healthy relationship education, and establishing and maintaining a community that is survivor-supportive.    

The purpose of the Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Policy is to define relationship violence and sexual misconduct, describe the process for reporting violations of the policy, outline the procedure used to investigate and resolve alleged violations of the policy, and identify resources available to members of the EMU community who are involved in an incident of relationship violence and/or sexual misconduct.

Conduct Prohibited Under This Policy

The university prohibits the following conduct under this policy regardless of the sex, sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression of the complainant or respondent: 

Relationship Violence

• Domestic Violence
• Dating Violence
• Intimate Partner Violence
• Stalking
• Retaliation

 Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence

• Sexual Harassment
• Gender-Based Harassment
• Sexual Assault
• Sexual Exploitation

The complete version of this policy and its procedures is available at emu.edu/titleix/relationship-violence-policy.

This privacy notice discloses the privacy practices for official websites of Eastern Mennonite University. Official EMU websites use the domain name ‘emu.edu’ or its subdomains, are publicly available and are managed by university staff to support university business. This privacy notice applies solely to information collected by official websites. It will notify you of the following:

1. What personally identifiable information is collected from you through the website, how it is used and with whom it may be shared.
2. What choices are available to you regarding the use of your data.
3. The security procedures in place to protect the misuse of your information.
4. How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

Information Collection, Use, and Sharing

We do not automatically collect personally identifying information for visitors to official EMU websites unless you voluntarily provide it to us—for example by requesting information, registering for an event, applying for admission, or logging in using an EMU account. Should you decide not to provide personally identifiable information you may not be able to receive some of the services we offer online.

We do automatically collect information generated as a routine part of visiting official EMU websites. This information may include your computer’s IP address, details about your web browser, and the date and time of your browsing session. We use this information and other information collected from our servers to monitor the performance of our systems, to respond to security threats, to analyze usage patterns and trends, and to improve our websites.

We also use "cookies" on official EMU websites. A cookie is a piece of data stored on a visitor's computer to help us improve your access to our site and identify repeat visitors to our site. Usage of a cookie is not linked to any personally identifiable information on our site, except during browsing sessions when you voluntarily provide such information to us.

We also use Google Analytics to collect and process data about your visit. We do not pass any personally identifiable information to Google and are prohibited from doing so by the Google Analytics terms of service. For more information about Google Analytics please see “How Google uses data when you use our partner’s sites or apps” located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ .

We are the sole owners of the information collected on this site. We do not sell or rent this information to anyone. We will not share your information with any third party outside of our organization, other than as necessary to fulfill your request and as described above.

We use an outside credit card processing company to bill you for goods and services. This company does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes beyond filling your order.

Your Access to and Control Over Information

You may opt out of any future contacts from us at any time. You can do the following at any time by contacting us via the email address or phone number given on our website:

• See what data we have about you, if any.
• Change/correct any data we have about you.
• Have us delete any data we have about you.
• Express any concern you have about our use of your data.

Security

We take precautions to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline.

Wherever we collect sensitive information that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a lock icon in the address bar and looking for "https" at the beginning of the address.

While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally identifiable information. We keep the computers and backup devices in which we store personally identifiable information in a secure environment.

Changes

We may make changes to this policy from time to time, prompted by changes in technology, law, or other factors. We reserve the right to make changes without notice.

Questions and Concerns

If you have questions or concerns about this policy or about official EMU websites, please contact us via telephone at 540-432-4357 or via email at helpdesk@emu.edu.

Eastern Mennonite University welcomes open communication from students regarding its policies and practices. Student feedback helps administrators determine effectiveness and clarify and improve processes and procedures. If a student has a complaint it should be communicated to the administrator responsible for the area of the complaint. Most complaints can be dealt with through informal communication between the parties.

When a student wishes to lodge a more formal written complaint in writing, the following student complaint form is submitted: http://emu.edu/about/student-complaint-form/.

This form is directed to the executive advisor to the president, who determines the appropriate person to respond to the stated concerns. A formal written response will occur within five business days of notification of the concern. This response will be copied to the executive advisor to the president.

In the event that a student is not satisfied with the response to the complaint, the student may choose to follow up by utilizing the Conflict and Grievance Policy and Procedure for resolution, available in student handbooks. The university recognizes its obligation to ensure that students who make complaints do not suffer adverse treatment as a result of the complaint. In the event that a student alleges such treatment, the student shall be referred to the Conflict and Grievance Policy and Procedure for resolution.

If an issue cannot be resolved by the university’s internal processes, students may file a formal complaint with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) at  https://www.schev.edu/index/students-and-parents/resources/student-complaints.

Approved by President’s Cabinet May 21, 2003
Revised March 12, 2007
Revised February 11, 2009
Updated March 2021