Approved by the Faculty Senate on December 17, 2025
Academic Honesty and Integrity Policy
If the instructor deems that a student has violated the academic dishonesty/integrity policy, the student will be informed of their alleged violations by their instructor in writing to afford the student an opportunity to respond to the alleged violations. The student will be given seven business days to respond. If the student does not respond, then the professor will proceed.
If a student is found to be in violation of academic honesty/integrity, a decision will be made by the instructor, in conjunction with the Program Director and Honors Chair (if applicable) and/or School Dean as to an appropriate sanction in accordance with the course syllabus and departmental policies and procedures. An institutional record of the incident will be held by the Academic Affairs Office.
The instructor may:
- Require that the student repeat the assignment or examination;
- Give the student a failing grade for the assignment or examination;
- Give the student a failing grade in the course and deny the student continued access to the class;
- Recommend Suspension or Dismissal of the student, in extreme cases of policy violation, to the Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs.
If the accused student does not agree that they are in violation of academic honesty/integrity, they may appeal through the Appeal Process for Academic Sanctions outlined below.
Appeal Review Procedures for Academic Sanctions
Grounds for an Appeal
Upon receiving notification of the outcome of an Academic Conduct Meeting a student may appeal via email to the Dean of the School to convene an Appeal Panel for Academic Affairs.
- Procedural error that likely impacted the hearing outcome. This may include a demonstrated bias or conflict of interest against the student or the complainant which impacted the outcome. The student is responsible for demonstrating the bias or conflict of interest.
- Newly discovered information for which there is a legitimate reason this information could not have been presented at the original Academic Conduct Meeting.
- An allegation that the sanctions issued were arbitrary and capricious. The student must demonstrate in the appeal that there had been a clear error of judgment. The student must show the decision was not based upon consideration of relevant factors, reason or judgment and was an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct.
The individual submitting the appeal must present a written request that specifically articulates reasons for the appeal within five (5) business days of the notification of the Academic Conduct Meeting decision. The five (5) business day requirement may be waived where extenuating circumstances prevail. The individual submitting the appeal must include in the written appeal the reason for the appeal and all the supporting facts and documentation. Appeals cannot be submitted by a third party on behalf of the student. An appeal is not a rehearing of the matter and will not have merit simply because the student submitting the appeal disagrees with the outcome.
Once the appeal has been received and has been determined to have merit, the Dean of the School will convene Academic Hearing Panel to take place within seven (7) business days from the determination of merit and also notify the student.
The Academic Hearing Panel will be comprised of 5 members, (3 faculty, the Dean of the respective School and an RCC student representative.).
Violations of this policy include but are not limited to the following:
- Cheating on an examination;
- Plagiarizing: that is, the taking and passing off as one’s own work the work of another (including essays, lab reports, art, music and other digital media tools) without citing the source;
- Using Artificial Intelligence tools (such as but not limited to ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Grammarly, Microsoft CoPilot, Claude or similar “humanizers”, any translation software, or image/video generators such as DALL-E 3, Midjourney, Ideogram, Flux, imagine.art, pixai.art, Adobe Firefly, etc.) without the express permission of the instructor. The student must divulge the use of AI tools for anything including generation of ideas, creation of text, and/or reporting the sources;
- Creating/citing false or fictitious references or providing false data for a research project;
- Submitting work from another course unless receiving advanced approval to do so by the instructor;
- Stealing or possessing stolen examinations or course materials;
- Posing as another person or allowing another person to pose as oneself;
- Falsifying academic records;
- Giving and/or receiving help from others in work to be submitted, if contrary to stated course rules.
- Using complete or partial papers from websites, internet sources, and other sources of non-original work without citing the sources.
If the instructor deems that a student is guilty of cheating or plagiarism, the student will be informed of their alleged violation(s) by their instructor either verbally or in writing, and a meeting will be arranged between the instructor and student to discuss the evidence and to afford the student an opportunity to respond to alleged violations.
If a student is found to be in violation of academic honesty/integrity, a decision will be made by the instructor, in conjunction with the Program Director and/or School Dean as to an appropriate academic penalty.
The instructor may:
- Require that the student repeat the assignment or the examination;
- Give the student a failing grade for the assignment or examination;
- Give the student a failing grade in the course and deny the student continued access to the class;
- Recommend suspension or expulsion of the student, in extreme cases of policy violation, to the Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs.
If the accused student does not agree that they are in violation of the standard of academic honesty/integrity, and the academic penalty does not involve suspension or expulsion from academic programs of the College, they may appeal through the Appeal Process for Academic Sanctions outlined in the Student Code of Conduct. In cases where the academic penalty involves suspension or expulsion from academic programs of the College, a student may appeal through the Appeal Process for Suspensions or Expulsions as outlined in the Student Code of Conduct.