Student Affairs to release data regarding COVID-19 community standards violations

The University Student Affairs office will release data regarding non-compliance to this year’s new COVID-19 community standards, it announced in an email to the campus community. Each quarter, data outlining referrals for violations and outcomes will be available on the Carolina Together website.  

Amy Johnson, vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said that this decision was made with the goal of increasing transparency while protecting private information.

“We have always talked about how we could make our community standards and the enforcement and our adherence to them transparent to the University community, so that has always been an objective,” Johnson said. 

To ensure student confidentiality, Johnson said Student Affairs has worked with the general counsel to understand the critical mass amount of cases needed to eliminate student identifiers. This past semester, there were a total of 456 referrals — with 324 of those ending in developmental action and 56 ending in removal from Carolina Housing.

Looking ahead to the spring 2021 semester, Student Affairs will continue to make this data available and work with other organizations such as the Orange County Health Department, Chapel Hill Police Department and UNC Police Department. 

Aaron Bachenheimer, executive director of off-campus student life and community partnerships, said these connections are important to properly enforcing and responding to community guideline violations.

“It's been really helpful to triangulate information and talk about the most appropriate response, which in most cases, particularly for what I would call sort of a first offense, assuming that it's not egregious, is outreach education,” Bachenheimer said. 

While community standards may change to incorporate the University’s recent testing guidelines, disenrollment will continue to be a consequence for non-compliance with community standards for the upcoming semester. 

“The reality is our community standards, while some of the elements may change, our approach to it won't change,” Johnson said. “It will remain a condition of enrollment.”

Though community guidelines will see few changes this spring, Johnson said Student Affairs has gathered feedback from students and is working to make guidelines and consequences clearer in hopes of increasing student adherence to community standards. 

First-year student Addison Powers said the University could have done a better job making the consequences clear to students this past semester.

“I believe the consequences could have been communicated better overall, which could have led to less of my peers contracting COVID and causing everyone to be sent home in the fall,” Powers said. 

In light of the University’s recent decision to reintroduce limited in-person classes next spring, Powers said it will be important for UNC to clearly outline its guidelines and consequences. 

“I believe the University should emphasize not only the health risks of not wearing a mask more but also lay out the consequences of such actions in bold terms," Powers said. "That way more students will feel the need to wear a mask, even if it does not coincide with their ideology."

To resolve these clarity issues, Johnson said she is working to consolidate more information on the Carolina Together website into one location.

“One of the other things that we have noticed is the Carolina Together website, while bringing all of this information together, has things in different places,” Johnson said. 

For example, he said the website currently has information related to community standards and mass gathering guidelines in separate locations. 

The next community standards report will be available on the Carolina Together website on Feb. 1. 

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