Bullying at UMD

When first looking at the numbers on bullying, they may surprise you. Over the last five years there have been a total of 14 reported incidents of bullying.

“In the last calendar year there were three incidents but none of those were students,” said Katie Jackson, director of the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, “I came to this campus a year and a half ago and we have not had any bullying charges so that tells me that these must have been employee, staff and faculty types of situations.”

The Student Conduct Code defines bullying as “aggressive behavior, directed at another person that causes stress or harm and is repeated over time, including but not limited to assaulting, defaming, terrorizing, making obscene gestures or invading privacy.”

The procedure to process a bullying claim is fairly straight forward. Once the office receives a report, the hearing officer looks for proof of violation of the Student Conduct Code.

The respondent can state their case and after the Panel comes up with their decision. The respondent can appeal within five class days on the grounds of new information becoming available, procedures in the hearings were not followed or the sanction assigned was not consistent with previous sanctions.

According to the survey, out of the 592 people, 246 of them said that they felt they were intimidated/bullied. Again of those 592 people, only 102 reported the conduct.

Mike Kenyanya, president of the Student Association, says he hasn’t received any complaints on bullying yet.

“We really haven’t heard much about it,” he said. “Not to say that it’s not occurring, I’m sure it is, that takes place in different forms.”

It’s strange to see so many people not report conduct and Katie Jackson doesn’t really know either.

“I think most people, when they’re in a position where they’re dealing with a problem or a conflict, they talk to people that they trust.” she said. “Perhaps they’re using their own problem-solving skills to resolve the situation.

Additionally in the survey, 26 percent of the people participating said that they have seen some misconduct towards another person or group.

With people experiencing this behavior and not reporting it, to people seeing it happening on campus, what is being done to help bullying become less prevalent at UMD?

Bullying is an issue that can get overlooked at a college campus, but it doesn’t make it any less prevalent. The University is taking it’s steps to make the campus a better place, but it starts with you.

Editor’s note: additional reporting done by Tyler Schendel

Related posts:

Travel is about discovery and evolving as a person. Italian Tour Operator BigMama Itinerari co-founders Andrea Campagni & Nicola Bandinelli talk to Turbulence to explain how they build evolutionary…

For my parents and their friends, it was a big deal when they got their first credit card. A bigger deal when they had several. Going out with friends or business partners, the ultimate status symbol…

15 tahun yang lalu saat internet baru booming, semua orang menyarankan anda untuk memiliki website bisnis anda sendiri. Kini, di tahun 2019 banyak orang yang menyadari bahwa websitenya tidak…