Members of the faculty affairs committee discussed the creation of a potential Kansas Board of Regents policy regarding consensual relationships between faculty and students during the meeting Tuesday in the Roe R. Cross room.
The chief executive officer of KBOR proposed the policy at the last KBOR meeting, according to Rob Catlett, faculty president and assistant professor of mathematics and economics, who attended the faculty affairs meeting to inform the committee about the possibility of a regent-wide policy and to get faculty input.
“Blake Flanders, who’s the chief executive officer of the Kansas Board of Regents, said he had looked at the consensual relationship policies of the regent universities and was considering having a board policy on consensual relationships and he wanted the input from the faculty senate presidents,” Catlett said.
Currently, the ESU policy manual states that “Emporia State University strongly disapproves of consenting relationships where a professional power differential exist,” but does not explicitly prohibit such relationships.
According to Catlett, Flanders liked the policy that Stanford University has in place and wanted to adopt it for all regents institutions.
The Stanford policy on consensual relationships states “sexual or romantic relationships–whether regarded as consensual or otherwise–between individuals in inherently unequal positions should in general be avoided and in many circumstances are strictly prohibited by this policy.”
It also explicitly prohibits sexual or romantic relationships between undergraduate students and teachers, as well as between staff members, such as administrators, and students.
“It is problematic for our institution and for smaller institutions,” Catlett said.
He made several examples where it could pose an issue, including if a faculty member’s spouse decided to take a class at the university and if that could be considered a violation of the policy.
“It’s the Board of Regents, so if they say that (we’ll adopt the Stanford policy), it really hems us in,” Catlett said. “It effectively says that our benefits…that are provided to spouses, it says ‘okay, those benefits are still there, but as soon as your spouse takes a class at ESU, you’ve violated the policy.’”
The policy that the Board of Regents would adopt, after getting faculty input from the university, would be a blanket policy for all regents institutions, Catlett said.
“We need to have a policy, if it’s going to come from the board of regents, that is respectful, understanding and does not get in the way of people’s legal rights,” Catlett said. “We’re not talking about illegal behavior at all. We’re talking about what the university can prohibit.”
Tim Marshall, associate professor of school leadership and middle and secondary teacher education, considered the Stanford policy too restrictive.
“There better be something in there that allows for professional judgement,” Marshall said. “Someone or some group, needs to be able to look at the policy and situation and say ‘does this really apply?’ I’m not opposed to a policy…but this is too restrictive.”
They also expressed concerns with the small size of ESU’s faculty and how that could affect the policy in ways that larger universities would not consider or have to deal with.
“We don’t want to have anybody in an uncomfortable situation, but…I don’t want to have it so that spouses of the faculty cannot take classes,” Catlett said. “That just seems ludicrous to me. It just seems not in the spirit of the university, especially in a smaller community.”
