*The following blog post was writen to be apart of a series of articles for a final public relations class during the fall 2010 semester.*
ORONO- The University of Maine is known for being a close-knit community and safe environment for students to get their education, however, what happens when sex offenders attend the University? These series of articles take a closer look at the UMaine campus on how they accommodate sex offenders-students or faculty.
When a suspect is convicted of a sexual crime the court requires them to register on the sex offender registry. The registry is public and can be accessed to find sex offenders in any given area in Maine by going to www.maine.gov.
According to the admission office forms, there are two “yes or no questions” that deal with the applicant’s criminal history.
Kenda Scheele, Sr. Associate Dean of Students, talked about what happens when students answer yes to these two criminal based questions.
“Question one” asks if the applicant has been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at an educational institution that they have attended since the 9th grade as well as any behavioral misconduct that resulted in the students’ suspension, removal, dismissal or expulsion from that institution.
“Most high schools have a no tolerance for any kind of bulling or anything like that. Usually it’s a one or two day suspension,” said Scheele.
“Whether it’s pushing a fellow student, yelling at a teacher, smoking… activities like that,” she added. However, she noted that most of these cases are not severe enough to see the student as a threat to the rest of the student body.
“Question two” asks the applicant if they’ve been “convicted of a misdemeanor, felony or other crime, or adjudicated of committing a juvenile crime.” If an applicant answers yes to this question it gets automatically reviewed.
The shared processing center will contact any student that answers yes to the above two questions. The shared processing center is a system office that is required to be located on campus and can be found on the Orono campus in Neville Hall. They will request court documents from the student about their conviction and any other information needed. Once required they will email Scheele.
“Someone from the shared system office will contact the student and ask for court documentation and the student will sign a release,” she said. “When they submit all the information and its for this campus [Orono] I get an email from the shared processing system saying I can review the students court documents.” Scheele shares a common website with the processing center when reviewing student’s files.”
Once Scheele looks over the students documents and gathers any additional information if needed she “determines, one whether they can be admitted or not, and whether there are any limitations to them being admitted.”
Scheele has recalled only a few times when she had to limit students to not living on campus.
“Sometimes I say yes they can and other times I say no, they can not live on campus,” she said.
The two questions are also on the housing form when students apply for on campus housing. If they answer “yes” for undergraduates it goes to Scheele but for graduate students trying to live in Stodder Hall it’s reviewed by Scott Delcourt. Delcourt is the associate dean of the graduate school at the University of Maine in Orono.
Other limitations may include students that have been convicted of identity theft, having that individual working in the records office isn’t the best fit. In those special cases Scheele makes limitations based on that student’s convictions and place negative service on their records. The student can review these negative services on their People Soft account.
Scheele doesn’t write out the whole limitation on the students account due to the student’s privacy and other UMaine faculty can access students accounts. Scheele says she will write a contact person on the account so if someone for example wanted to hire this student for on campus employment they can call me and I would explain the students situation and limitations.
The University of Maine is on their second year of asking students the two above questions with all seven campuses with People Soft. Student records all coming online in a new system everything comes together nicely and easy enough for the shared processing office and Scheele to review students.
David Fiacco, Director of the Community Standards, Rights & Responsibilities Office at the University of Maine, explained more about the process Scheele goes through when the students answer those two questions.
“If they [student] check the yes box for ether of those, those applications are flagged for review. Those that indicate criminal conviction, there is a group of individuals system wide that reviews those applications. Normally they will require more information on the details that lead to the conviction. And then they will make a decision based on their educational judgment,” he said.
When the student’s criminal record is reviewed and has any sexual piece when dealing with their conviction(s), Scheele contacts the Equal Opportunity Office and gets them evolved in the review.
The Equal Opportunity Office is very dear to Scheele because they enforce title nine on the UMaine campus. Title nine deals with how society treats men and women equally. Scheele Equal Opportunity Office deals with everything that is discriminating or sexual harassment; sexual assault of course is an extreme case of sexual harassment.
Scheele can only recall one case when a student’s record was reviewed by the Equal Opportunity Office. “The student had a family and it the babysitter was involved. It was a case with inappropriate touching of a babysitter,” she said.
The babysitter was 14 years old. “We talked to his probation officer… he [student] signed a release so we could do that and what we ended up doing; he was on probation at the time, so we just said that student could come back when his probation period was over.” Scheele could not comment on whether that student was convicted and was put on the sex offender registry.
If a student lied on the two questions on the admission form or housing form they would be in direct violation of the University of Maine conduct code.
Scheele described one student that lied on their questions and was contacted multiple times by fellow UMaine organizations that this particular student was “behaving oddly”. There is a student behavior review team that monitors student activity. Once the student was recognized police took a closer look and learned about the extensive criminal background. “The student lied and we gave them the option of taking themselves out or we’d kick them out” Scheele stated.
Fiacco was unsure about how long a sexual assault crime should impact a person’s life. “If someone was a sex offender whether they be registered or not, if it was something that occurred 15 years ago and there is no other activity or violation. It begs the question how long does that short of thing impact you?”
Scheele continued to talk about how at the university is a division of life long learning and many classes are offered online or as a hybrid were students have to attend class a minimum of once a week. She stated that this area of learning is where they’re starting to check into about how can take these classes and what restrictions would be reasonable.
Scheele ended with reassuring students that “if we thought someone would be harmful to anyone here, we wouldn’t have them here.”
According to Chief Ronald La Croix, of the University of Maine Police Department, when a sex offender is accepted at the University of Maine they are required to update their address with the sex offender registry and notify the Orono Police Department. The Orono PD will then notify the UMaine PD about the sex offender.
La Croix expressed that the department knows about the sex offenders before they get to the campus. If the offender has restrictions to their conditions the police department will monitor that individual otherwise the police department will just make their presence known to the individual. “There is nothing else legally we can do,” he said.
When asked what happens with a student commits a sexual crime while attending UMaine, La Croix explained the school and criminal system.
“Keep in mind the school process and criminal process are totally separate, two distinct processes,” he said.
“Say we get a case tonight and we got a suspect and are investigating it. The school has to move kind of swiftly on their end. Those types of investigations take a very long time depending on the evidence and what we have to do. If its forensic evidence those need to be sent to a lab and they can take a while. But the school has to act fairly quickly on what to do with that student based on our investigation but there is a lot of things we can’t tell the school because it jeopardizes the investigation. The school can suspend that person but the person if probably going to appeal it and might get back in school,” he said.
Fiacco responded with explaining the school process of a criminal investigation.
“To be clear our process is designed to be educational. While the criminal process is designed to punitive, it’s all about punishment. Not so much here. We want to be educational and there are some cases were suspension is educational. Some people need that wake up call and I have to protect the rest of the students,” he said.
Fiacco understands how long and delicate an investigation can be.
“Our process takes time and we want to be careful unless they constitute a continuing threat we don’t want to remove someone before we made a decision about their responsibility,” he said.
Fiacco believes in this process even if it’s something small like two people having a small conflict. He states that in some cases the school has had to remove certain students from their dorm to separate them from a troubled student.
If a student has any concern about their safety, Carey Nason, of the Safe Campus Project at the University of Maine in Orono, is there to help students. Fiacco urges any student that has an issue with sexual assault, domestic violence, or sexual violence in any period of their life. Nason is very informed with the police and school processes and is here to provide guidance and support.
