Site Visit Report 1

Site Visit Report

Kedron Taylor
Law & Higher Education
Kent State University

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For our site visit, my group interviewed the Director of Student Conduct at Kent State
University, Todd Kamenash. Todd has been with Kent State since 2010, and worked in the
Student Conduct Office at University at Buffalo prior to then for about 12 years. Todd received
both his Bachelors in Business Administration and Masters in Higher Education from
University at Buffalo. During our interview, Todd explained his role within the office as well as
the university as a whole. He also spoke about his past role at the University at Buffalo and how
that compares to the work he has done at Kent State University. He answered any questions we
had for him, and also directed us to the Student Conduct website for any other information.
First and foremost, the Office of Student Conduct has many roles and responsibilities as well
as student-related goals. Those goals include, but are not limited to: providing students with due
process, making students aware of and able to reasonably navigate through the conduct process,
having students accept responsibility for their actions when its unwarranted, and applying
sanctions designed to assist students in their pursuit of excellence in both the classroom and the
community (Kent State University, 2014). The student conduct process, as well, is expected to:
determine consequences for behaviors that violate university rules, policies, and local, state, and
federal laws; offer outcomes to assist students in learning about the impact of their actions on
themselves and others within their respective communities; and protect the integrity of students,
faculty, staff, the institution, and the University community (Kent State University, 2014). Some
aspects of the process we were told to keep in mind were that when a student is sent to student
conduct they are not being charged with a crime. Instead of reaching the verdict of guilty or not
guilty the office determines whether the student is responsible or not responsible for whatever it
is they are being accused of based on the preponderance of evidence (Kent State University,
2014). So instead of charging a student with a crime they are letting the student know that they
may have violated the universitys rules. This is so because the Student Conduct process is
separate from local, state, and federal courts systems. Their job is to abide by the code of student
conduct, thus they dont apply punishments or sentencing to students who are found responsible,
but rather apply educational sanctions to the best of their ability. Through the usage of Hearing
Officers, they are expected to use their training to gain a better understanding of the student so as
to develop a sanction for them that fits their situation, either developmentally or academically.
For example, a student who might be responsible for academic misconduct in the form of a
continuously low GPA could be sent to the Academic Success Center for tutoring as their
sanction so as to get them some kind of help for their misconduct. Opportunities like these that
are granted to students give them a chance to help themselves. Students also have reduced price
legal services available on campus, but those services will not help with student conduct cases.
Each semester, students are charged $9, which covers their cost for help from Student Legal
Services without any hidden fees.
The Office of Student Conduct deals with other issues apart from student misconduct.
Todd explained that along with conduct the office also deals with town-gown relations,
admission background checks, and transfer checks from other universities, just to name a few.
The office also runs a workshop called SIRCA which stands for Students Involved in
Responsible Character Awareness formerly known as an Ethics of Decision Making workshop
for students. Between Todd and his Assistant Director, they serve on up to a dozen university
committees. The office, in other words, has its hands full. However, they are not decision-making
entities in all of that work. The office only has the power to make decisions in regards to conduct
matters. In any other area they are involved in that does not deal with conduct matters, the office
is considered a consultant, trainer, or participant. They get to make decisions when cases are

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referred to them. They are not an investigative unit, so the cases that are brought to them must
have evidence brought with them as well. Residence Services and the police make many of the
referrals that come to the Office of Student Conduct. They are given an incident report, and then
they react. When they are given this incident report, they have to determine what kind of a case it
is going to be considered high-risk or low level. If the case is considered high-risk it goes to a
hearing panel, and if it is considered low level it goes to a sanction hearing.
When cases go to a sanction hearing, students are typically notified via email that an
infraction occurred, when it occurred, and that the report was shared with Student Conduct by
some other party. The student then is responsible for setting up an appointment with the office
within a week. Sanction hearings are set up as a one-on-one meeting between a student and a
hearing officer, and are oftentimes a lot faster than hearing panels. The sanction hearing itself is
used as a time to determine the sanction the office will give the student, as well as an opportunity
for the office to talk to the student and get to know them a bit so that they can figure out how
they are doing academically and developmentally in order to develop the means to sanction them
educationally so they can benefit from the situation and move forward. Sanction hearings never
appear on a students transcripts. When cases that are high-risk go to a hearing panel they are
usually cases that involve an act of violence, major theft, or a repeat offender. The goal of a
hearing panel is to determine if it is more likely than not that the student violated university
rules, and if so what sanctions apply? Just like a sanction hearing, students subjected to a hearing
panel are found responsible or not responsible and sanctioned appropriately.
In regards to the organizational chart of the university, The Office of Student Conduct is
located under the Student Affairs branch which is under the direction of Greg I. Jarvie, Vice
President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs. Other departments under the Student
Affairs branch of the organizational chart include The Center for Student Involvement and the
Kent Student Center. Within the Office of Student Conduct, Todd is the Assistant Dean of
Students and Director of Student Conduct. This position is considered a twelve month, full time
position that requires a Bachelors degree as well as either a Masters or Terminal degree. Below
Todd is Lisa Oddo who is the Assistant Director. Her position is a ten month, full time position
that requires a Bachelors degree. Next in the hierarchy is Karen Welcome, the office secretary,
who holds a twelve month, fulltime position which requires a high school diploma. There are
also two graduate assistants and typically one intern in the office. Many of those graduate
assistants and interns seemed to be part of our Higher Education Administration Program. In
order to operate the office and provide all necessary services the office runs on an annual budget
of around $215,000. According to Todd, about 95% of that budget goes toward staff salary and
stipends, while the rest makes up the operating budget which is not very large. The budget
stream that they do have comes out of Residence Services who does all of their accounting and
budgeting. Due to the offices location in the Residence Services building they are also not
required to pay for their office space, which helps a lot. Essentially there is no professional
development budget for staff or graduate assistants, but many of them attend conferences
anyway. Those conferences are either paid for individually or other forms of scholarship or
grants are sought. Todd explained to our group that currently Kent State University is doing very
well financially. High levels of enrollment as well as little debt are two contributing factors to
that financial stability. He believes it is also beneficial for their office to be under Residence
Services because they are considered an auxiliary service. This means that Residence Services is
making money for the university.

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The Office of Student Conduct deals with all misconduct that is non-academic in nature,
so if administrative policies are also violated then the individual would have to answer to Student
Conduct for conduct related-issues, and then answer to whatever other department oversees them
for the administrative component violations. An example Todd gave us to explain further was
that a few weeks prior to our interview he was contacted by a Dean of Students who has a
student who has plagiarized on three separate occasions. The university has a specific policy
against plagiarism, but each separate school might also have their own policy against plagiarism.
In this situation, the Dean is claiming that this is the students third time committing plagiarism,
but this is the first time the Office of Student Conduct is hearing about it, so they are unsure as to
how they can proceed. The school wants to dismiss her because this is her third offense, but
because they did not abide by university policy to report plagiarism, in the eyes of the university,
this is the students first offense. Therefore, the school is not allowed to dismiss the student
through the student conduct process. Todd admitted situations like this one can be very
frustrating because the school did not do what it was supposed to do in reporting the acts of
plagiarism. Todd tried to explain to us about how the different departments within the university
dont necessarily have overlapping jurisdiction with the Office of Student conduct, but rather that
these different departments can choose how they want to go about disciplining the student and
whether or not that includes sending them to Student Conduct. An example he gave us was that
when a person is caught with drugs, a lot of the time the university police will give them an
opportunity to be a confidential informant. If the individual agrees to do so, and they give the
police solid information, they will not get sent to Student Conduct. In this situation, Todd
believed that it was better to offer the student the chance to help police catch a drug dealer who is
hurting even more people than that individual student. This option helps more people, and to him
that was the right thing to do.
Todd recounted many unusual cases he encountered while at University at Buffalo as well
as some that he has encountered during his time at Kent State University. His most unusual case
at University at Buffalo had to do with a paid parking lot. He explained how parking had always
been an issue at the university, even in these special lots that are closer to university buildings
that individuals must pay to park in. According to Todd, a man and woman were both vying for
the same parking spot in this lot. The man had been waiting for another person to pull out of their
parking spot so that he could park there, but then the female driver drove up and into the spot
before he had a chance. The man ended up finding another spot that was closer to the university
building, but waited until the woman who took his original spot left. He then proceeded to
deflate all of the air in her tires, unaware that a university police officer was in the vicinity and
witnessed his actions. The university officer approached the man and asked him what he was
doing, and the man immediately said I want to file a countersuit. The man was a graduate
student who claimed that the woman had stolen his spot, and that it was his fair and square. The
man ended up receiving community service, anger management, and probation for his actions.
Todd thought the situation was comical, but was thankful it was not a violent case. For Todd, it is
the cases that are the most frustrating are the ones that do not turn out to be educational for the
student.
Another unusual case Todd encountered occurred at Kent State University about two
years ago. A male student was caught with a bag of marijuana. He accepted all responsibility for
having the drugs, but said to the hearing officer Im really pissed at Ziploc, because they said it
was supposed to be air tight. The student wanted to sue Ziploc because it did not maintain the
smell of the drugs in the bag. The hearing officer then asked the student if he had ever opened

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the bag, and the students response was well, yeah, I had to get it out. Todd could not believe,
and neither could my group, how foolish the student was for thinking that he could actually have
a legitimate case against Ziploc. Those were the only two stories Todd mentioned in regards to
being unusual, but he said there were many, many more that he could just not think of from off
the top of his head.
Although some of the cases can be unusual, according to Todd between four and six
hundred cases per year come through the Office of Student Conduct. Alcohol and drug cases
make up majority of the cases that go through the Student Conduct process. Todd estimated that
last year around 30% of cases were alcohol related, and about 13% were controlled substance
related. Residence Hall policy violations make up a lot of the cases as well, but those violations
include a number of different offenses. He said that our students are awesome and creative, and
will find ways to break rules that we never thought of, and to him it is ok because the objective
of his office to get students to learn from their mistakes. He does not consider majority of the
students who come through his office as bad people, but rather good people who have made bad
choices. There have been students, however, who have gone through the conduct process who
have proven to be problematic. In some cases, the office will conduct three, four, even five
hearings with them and they just refuse to correct their behavior. At that point, the office may
have to resort to expelling the student from Kent. Typically there are twenty to thirty students per
year who are separated in some way from the university in some way, either through suspension
or dismissal. Suspension means the student is not allowed to return to the university for a
semester or two, while dismissal means the student cannot return to the university ever again. In
that situation, they can try and appeal to come back on an annual basis, but there must be good
reasoning behind allowing them to come back to campus as a student. Acts of violence including,
sexual or gender issues, are oftentimes the reasoning behind a students dismissal from the
university. You cannot be a student here if you are a negative impact on our community, or
create a hostile environment in our community, says Todd. Students who are ultimately expelled
from one campus are expelled from all Kent State Campuses. According to Todd, especially in
cases where a student commits an act of violence, a persona non grata status is attached to their
case which means that if they are caught on any Kent State campus they can be arrested for
criminal trespassing. A list, in the form of a Google Doc, is shared between all campuses of those
individuals so that they will not try to gain access to any other campus. A hold is also placed on
them from registering for classes on other Kent State campuses, so in other words an individual
banned from Kent State Salem cannot try and sign up for classes at Kent State Trumbull.
However, no individual can be banned from campus for longer than five years, and they have the
opportunity to challenge the ban every year.
Todd admitted the most rewarding aspect of his position is when students who are
brought in to Student Conduct for their hearing begin to understand how their actions affect
them. Specifically the moment when they realize that they can be a better person, thus helping to
make Kent State a better environment for others. In some cases, he said you can visibly see
student make the realization. In contrast, one of the most difficult aspects of his position is when
students dont make that realization and continue to violate university rules, and dont seem to
care or try to change their behavior. The students who refuse to admit when they have done
wrong are some of the most frustrating cases for him. He thinks that when you screw up you
should be able to admit it.
Ultimately, our time interviewing Todd Kamenash was very informative and provided us
with a better understanding of how student conduct is handled at a public, recipient college like

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Kent State University. The Office of Student Conduct is responsible for more duties than I had
originally thought, but it is being directed by an individual who seems more than capable of
taking on those responsibilities. I believe when working in that kind of office it is important to
want to understand where students are coming from and that is exactly how Todd operates.

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Works Cited
Kent State University, 2014. The Office of Student Conduct. Retrieved from
http://www.kent.edu/studentconduct.