Faculty-Student Relationship Standards

The faculty-student relationship must be built on a foundation of mutual trust and respect.  As such:

Faculty must:

1. Provide the opportunity for students to learn the principles, facts, attitudes and behaviors which will enable them to become competent physicians.
2. Treat students with respect as individuals and future colleagues.
3. Must strive to model professional behavior at all times.

Students must:

1. Put forth their best effort to learn and exhibit professional behavior towards each other, faculty, and patients.
2. Show respect for faculty as their teachers and mentors in the process of becoming physicians.
3. Must strive to model professional behavior at all times.

Additionally, health professionals who provide psychiatric/psychological counseling services or other sensitive health services to medical students must have no involvement in the academic evaluation or promotion of the students receiving those services.  Any faculty member who has a close personal relationship as a family member or care provider with a student should review with the Associate Dean of Student Affairs the appropriateness of that faculty member’s involvement in the student’s supervision, evaluation or promotion process.  The faculty will comply with the decision of the Dean in such matters.

Approved by the 2005-2006 Academic Committee

University of Kansas Policy on Consenting Relationships
(http://www.provost.ku.edu/policy/consenting_relationships/)

The University of Kansas has a tradition of commitment to providing an academic community environment that, without discrimination, fosters intellectual, professional and personal growth. Central to the preservation of this environment is the trust that should characterize all interactions among those working toward the common goal of the institution, namely, our students, faculty, unclassified staff, and classified personnel. This trust is put at risk when members of the University community engage in consenting romantic or sexual relationships that involve persons of unequal power, for example, administrator and faculty, faculty and student, supervisor and employee. Because the University of Kansas strongly disapproves of consenting relationships where a professional power differential exists, this policy statement is being promulgated

1. A faculty member will always be treated as having such a power differential if the student is in an educational experience where the faculty member has authority to assign grades. The same holds in other circumstances as well, for example, when a faculty member serves on thesis, dissertation, or scholarship awards committees.  These principles also apply to administrators and supervisors in their relationships with students, faculty, unclassified staff, and classified personnel.
2. In the view of the University of Kansas, romantic or sexual relationships between persons of unequal power, even if consenting, are unwise and often contrary to professional ethics. Such a relationship tends to impair one's ability to make an objective judgement of the performance of the student or employee.  Those who choose to ignore these standards will stand responsible for their actions and risk the loss of support of the University community.
3. Decisions concerning grades, degrees, promotions, evaluations, merit increases, and awards must be made free from any trace of bias or favor. Such decisions come under a cloud when made by those who have an emotional relationship, beyond the purely professional or academic one, with those who benefit from those decisions. Even the mere appearance of bias may seriously disrupt the academic or work environment.
4. The individual in authority bears the primary responsibility for any negative consequences resulting from an even apparently consenting romantic or sexual relationship. It is the student or the employee, not the instructor or supervisor, who is most at risk in these relationships. In particular, the respect and trust accorded a professor by a student, as well as the legitimate power exercised by the professor in giving grades, criticism, praise, recommendations for further study, future employment, etc., greatly diminish the student's actual freedom of choice, should sexual favors be added to the professor's demands. Although it is proper for a student to decline any personal relationship of this kind, a student may feel that few options are available when a professor asks for a date. If an employee's supervisor attempts to initiate a personal relationship, the employee may feel that his or her options are similarly limited. As a result, the degree of informed consent that exists within such a relationship is difficult to establish. Should a charge of sexual harassment follow, a claim of mutual consent may be difficult to sustain.
5. Commonly accepted standards of professional behavior and ethics require that faculty members not hold evaluative power over any student with whom they have a romantic or sexual relationship. Thus, faculty members should not initiate or accept such a relationship with a student over whom they have an evaluative role. Should such a relationship exist between a faculty member and a student, the faculty member must remove him/herself from the evaluation of the student's work. Failure to do so will be a violation of Article V, Section 4 of the Faculty Code of Conduct.  Similar proscription applies to administrators and supervisors in their relationships with students and employees over whom they have an evaluative role. A supervisor who is in a romantic or sexual relationship with another individual over whom he or she has evaluative responsibility must remove himself or herself from personnel decisions concerning that individual, such as appointment, retention, promotion, discipline, tenure, or salary. Failure to do so will be a conflict of interest.

Approved by Chancellor Gene A. Budig
February 1, 1994