Columbia Southern University.

What CSU's own Handbook says about how a case proceeds

Who may be present

The Academic Integrity Policy's own procedure describes a written notice and an oral discussion in which the student is given "the opportunity to present their position," but names no support person, adviser, or note-taker, and does not address recording. CSU's separate, broader Student Code of Conduct process states of its own committee meeting that it "will include the student; legal representation is not allowed in the meeting" — a different policy that does not, by its own terms, extend to Academic Integrity Policy cases, reproduced here because the Handbook publishes no accompaniment rule of its own for academic integrity.

What follows on the record

CSU states that violations of the Academic Integrity Policy "are documented and can prevent students from graduating with honors." Not stated in the sources reviewed: whether a violation appears as a transcript notation, how long a record is retained, or whether it is disclosed to a graduate program, employer, or licensing board — searched in the Academic Integrity Policy, the AI Acceptable Use Policy, the Student Code of Conduct Policy, the Academic Records Privacy Policy, and the FERPA policy sections of the 2026–2028 Student Handbook.

The two questions an adviser raises first, answered from this institution's own published documents — or recorded as not stated in them.

CSU's Academic Integrity Policy (Handbook pp. 33–35) states that academic dishonesty includes plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and cheating — the last defined to include contract cheating, "the use of paper generators, buying or selling assignments, submitting another person's work, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a substitute for the student's original work, collusion to cheat, and fabricating citations." Every student agrees to an Honor Pledge on each course enrollment: "I promise that I will not be involved in cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, or misrepresentation of sources while enrolled as a student at Columbia Southern University."

For an initial offense, "the student receives a written notification from the course faculty member detailing the violation, along with a request to discuss the concern orally," is given "an explanation of the evidence against them," and the faculty member may permit resubmission or a grading penalty, or refer the matter to the Dean of Students (or designee), then the Academic Program Director or College Dean in elevated cases. Additional offenses may escalate through the same officers, with the student again given the opportunity to present their position. CSU states there is "no limitations period" barring action on a discovered violation, including after a course has ended or a student has graduated, when the review moves to the Provost/Chief Academic Officer.

Sanctions "vary based on the severity and frequency of offenses" and may include point deductions, assignment or course failure, an Academic Integrity Training Module course, academic-integrity probation (with a 12-credit-hour integrity requirement and possible enrollment restriction), university dismissal (upon approval of the Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs or Provost), and degree revocation (upon approval of the Provost). No evidentiary standard — such as "preponderance" — is stated for the Academic Integrity Policy's own procedure; by contrast, CSU's separate Non-Academic Grievance Policy does state one for its own decisions, a "preponderance of evidence standard of proof, which is met if there is a greater than 50% chance that the claim is true" (Handbook p. 39) — a different policy, reproduced only to show that the absence above is a real absence rather than a search failure.

Appeal: "If a student disagrees with the issued sanctions, they may submit a written appeal to the Dean of Students to be reviewed by the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. The appeal must thoroughly explain the basis for disagreement." The Senior Vice Provost "will review the evidence, communicate with the student, and render a final decision with an explanation of the basis of the decision, which cannot be appealed." No filing window (a number of days) is stated for this appeal in the sources reviewed.

CSU's AI Acceptable Use Policy states its own enforcement funnels into the same procedure: "Use of AI in violation of this Policy will be treated as academic misconduct. CSU will take disciplinary action under the principles and procedures set forth in its Academic Integrity Policy for any violations of this policy."

Source: 2026–2028 Student Handbook, pp. 33–39. What any of this means for a particular case is for the institution and its process to determine.

Revision history of this page

2026-09-08 — Page created. First-party material captured this date: the 2026–2028 Student Handbook (effective Jul 1, 2026 – Jun 30, 2028, retrieved via direct PDF fetch and read with a local text extraction pass, since the file is a scanned/formatted PDF rather than plain text) for the Academic Integrity Policy, AI Acceptable Use Policy, Student Code of Conduct Policy, Student Rights and Responsibilities Policy, Non-Academic Grievance Policy, and the Office of Student Resolution and Conduct's own contact listing; the CSU Library FAQ (libguides.columbiasouthern.edu/libraryfaq, last updated Aug 7, 2026) for SafeAssign; the Student Resolution and Support Overview pages, read live in a browser because they render client-side. Named-vendor sweep (Turnitin, SimCheck, Originality, Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus, Examity) and category sweep (Student Handbook, CSU Library FAQ and AI guides, Success Center pages) both came back empty of any AI-writing detector; SafeAssign is the sole confirmed text-matching tool and no page states it carries an AI-writing feature. This is not a step-2 disqualification: the inventory is silent, not adverse — no CSU page recommends against or disables AI detection. Deliberate omission: a 2020 Communicator announcement naming an "AcademicIntegrity@ColumbiaSouthern.edu" mailbox was located but not used, since it could not be confirmed current against any 2026 page and the Handbook's own, current Office of Student Resolution and Conduct contact was sufficient. Currency question recorded rather than resolved: a 2021 CSU blog post describes Remote Proctor Now for webcam-proctored exams; the dedicated page 404s as of this review and no 2026 CSU page (including the Handbook, which does not use the word "proctor") corroborates it — reproduced in Section 01 as unresolved rather than asserted. Ombuds/advocacy sweep (ombuds, ombudsperson, student advocacy, dean of students advocacy) found none; CSU's Support Overview page lists Office of Disability Services, Online Library, and Student Resolution as its "Additional Services," with no office titled ombuds or advocate. Nothing paraphrase-pending. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter (review confirmed 2026-09-08).

2026-09-13 — Editorial review. Carrie Schluter read this page in full against its recorded first-party sources and found no change required. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter (review confirmed 2026-09-13).

2026-10-06 — Internet Archive captures requested on 2026-09-09 by an automated capture pass and recorded this date; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: CSU Library FAQs — Writing Center (APA) → https://web.archive.org/web/20260909113100/https://libguides.columbiasouthern.edu/c.php?g=489175&p=4756432; columbiasouthern.edu — Student Resolution → https://web.archive.org/web/20260909113219/https://www.columbiasouthern.edu/student-support/student-resolution; columbiasouthern.edu — Support Overview → https://web.archive.org/web/20260909113252/https://www.columbiasouthern.edu/student-support/support-overview.

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