Student disciplinary processes

[bathsh3ba]

I'm a complainant in a student disciplinary that is currently under investigation. For obvious reasons I will not give away any details other than that I am one of several complainants and we are or were all both PGRs.

I gave my statement about 3 months ago and the investigation has been ongoing. Originally I was told it was going to a hearing and has been classified as an allegation of a serious offence. The hearing has now been postponed twice due to 'new information that requires investigation' and now they have asked to meet with me again to give me an update and to ask me some questions about new developments. It is a voluntary meeting and I'm actually no longer a student there.

This seems to be going on so long. Is it usual for an investigation to take so long? Should I be concerned some kind of counter allegation has been made or would they have told me?

In my experience student disciplinary processes often take months and months. I've been involved in one recently when the issue happened in January of this year and has only just been resolved.

Potentially, other complainants may have come forward or the accused (for want of a better word) may have raised issues or counter claims in their statement both scenarios will need investigation and add to the complexity of the case and require more time. Obviously this might not be the case, depending on the details of your situation, but this type of added complexity is not uncommon, once investigations start.

Also if you can, take the update meeting to find out what’s going on and when to can expect an outcome.

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Oh okay, if it's fairly standard I'll worry a bit less. I was threatened not to make the complaint, which they know. I'm going to go to the meeting but I expect I'll be working at my new job at a different university by the time the hearing happens.

these things can take AGES. I know one investigation that has barely started after 10 months because there was (a) an initial fact-finding (b) convene a panel to investigate (c) one person involved in the case takes 2 months leave for 'stress' (d) next date available for all 4 panel members is October ....