The UA Faculty Senate approved a policy yesterday that gives the university police the power to kick disruptive individuals off campus for up to six months.
While conduct rules are in place for UA faculty, staff and students, there had not been any policy regarding the general public, said Robert Mitchell, vice chair of the senate.
Though university police could arrest non-UA individuals who caused a disturbance, they had no authority to ask them to stay off campus, making it difficult to track repeat disturbances and trespassers, said Mitchell, a librarian at the Main Library.
Under the Exclusionary Order Policy, disruptive persons can be removed from any campus area and prohibited from returning for up to six months. The policy also applies to UA sites off the main campus, said law professor Andrew Silverman.
A disruptive person is considered anyone who engages in illegal behavior or disrupts the university’s educational mission, meaning he or she uses words or actions that convey an immediate intent to harm a person or property.
Exclusionary orders can only be requested by the UA president, dean of students, director or department head where the incident occurs, or by an officer from the University of Arizona Police Department.
Past practice was to tell people not to come back, but we really didn’t have an official tracking of the contract and were pretty much left out on our own as far as whether the UA would back us.
UAPD spokesman
Eugene Mejia, UAPD spokesman, said the policy creates a support system between the police and the university.
“”Past practice was to tell people not to come back, but we really didn’t have an official tracking of the contact and were pretty much left out on our own as far as whether the UA would back us,”” Mejia said.
In other business, the senate approved revisions made to the grade replacement opportunity policy, allowing a UA college or department to limit the options for GROs.
The revisions, which were approved by the Graduate and Professional Student Council and the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, were made to support faculty who have been reluctant to change a course because they do not want to deprive students of the GRO option, according to the consent agenda item.
