Southwest Minnesota State University.

What SMSU's own pages say about how cases proceed

Who may be present

At an Academic Appeals Committee (AAC) hearing, "[s]tudents have the right to a representative in preparing for or to be present at hearings. Should a representative be present at the hearing, the representative may only respond to direct questions from members of AAC." No recording provision is stated anywhere in Policy A-032, Policy G-005, or Procedure G-005.4.

What follows on the record

No separate "academic dishonesty" transcript notation is stated anywhere in the sources reviewed; the sanctions list runs from a warning through a failing grade, suspension, expulsion, or "revocation of a degree," and "[s]anctions applied by the faculty must be clearly explicated in the relevant course syllabus." Copies of the decision letter after an AAC hearing go "to the student, the faculty member, and all the student's academic advisors," and "[a]ll evidence presented and discussions undertaken in the course of any appeal shall be held in the strictest confidence."

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

A faculty-level meeting comes first: "The instructor of record should meet with the student regarding the specific charge, consider the evidence, and hear the student's explanation," and "shall only meet with the student one time regarding the incident." If the student disputes the finding, they have five business days to appeal in writing to the Academic Dean's Office, which screens the appeal for merit before it reaches the Academic Appeals Committee (AAC) — a body of one academic dean (tie-breaking vote only), seven faculty, two students, and non-voting members from the Student Success Center and the Registrar's office.

A recommendation of suspension or expulsion is "reviewed and a final decision will be made by the Provost," and "[d]ecisions regarding suspension and expulsion may not be appealed." For every other AAC decision on an academic-dishonesty case, a student "may appeal to the provost" in writing within two business days of the AAC's decision, limited to the written materials the AAC itself considered plus the student's stated reasons the decision "was unsatisfactory or unfair." Source: A-032 Academic Honesty and G-005.4 Academic Dishonesty Appeals. What these quotations mean for any particular case is for the institution and its process to determine; they are reproduced so you can read the originals in context.

Revision history of this page

2026-10-14 — Page created (unattended scheduled build; cold build, no prior CANDIDATES.md/procedure-facts.json research to reuse). Priority A tranche 4, entry 256; Minnesota State campus (systemwide position previously resolved at mankato, entry 137, built 2026-09-21: no systemwide detector deployment, the minnstate.edu Generative AI guidance names Turnitin, Copyleaks, GPTZero and Originality AI only as generic examples in a caution against sole reliance). This pass completed the campus-level check the queue note called for. Named-vendor sweep (Turnitin and its AI writing indicator, SimCheck, Originality, Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus, Examity) and category sweep (SMSU's own IT services knowledge base, searched directly for "turnitin" and "AI detection," zero results both times; the D2L Brightspace faculty FAQ; Policy A-032 and its companion appeals documents) found no AI-text detector named anywhere on smsu.edu. GENUINE UNRESOLVED INVENTORY, NOT A DISQUALIFICATION: the systemwide guidance document's "does not recommend the use of AI detection tools as singular indicators of plagiarism" is a caution against sole reliance, the same family as EWU/Auburn/UMD elsewhere in this collection, not an institutional statement that a tool was ever deployed and withdrawn; SMSU's own Policy A-032 text independently requires "multiple pieces of evidence" for an AI accusation without naming any tool at all. PROCESS CAPTURED FROM POLICY A-032, POLICY G-005 AND PROCEDURE G-005.4, all three current (A-032 revised Jan 22, 2026; G-005 reviewed Jan 22, 2026; G-005.4 reviewed March 2023), read directly from the live catalog pages rather than the older FIRE-hosted PDF copies search turned up first. Evidentiary standard "more likely than not" quoted directly from G-005.4's hearing-order section. ADVISOR: a "representative" may prepare the student and be present at the hearing but "may only respond to direct questions from members of AAC" — no broader participation right stated. RECORDING: not addressed anywhere in any of the three documents — a genuine silence, not inferred either way. RECORD: no special transcript notation distinct from the sanction itself (e.g. a failing grade, suspension, or expulsion) was located; decision-letter distribution and appeal confidentiality are both stated directly. APPEAL, TWO DIVERGENT PATHS: ordinary AAC decisions on dishonesty may be appealed to the Provost within two business days; AAC recommendations of suspension or expulsion go to the Provost for final decision and may not be appealed at all once decided. OFFICE: the policy itself routes initial faculty reports and student appeals to "the appropriate academic dean," without naming a single central dean's-office contact usable for every case (SMSU has two academic deans by college, per an earlier capture of the President's Cabinet page; the live cabinet page fetched this pass no longer lists them, so neither is used here as a potentially stale contact) — the docket instead uses the Provost/Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, confirmed first-party as the office with authority over the Academic Honesty process and the final decision-maker on suspension/expulsion recommendations. OMBUDS: none located; "ombudsperson," "ombuds" and "student advocacy" searches of smsu.edu returned nothing; the Deeann Griebel Student Success Center holds a non-voting seat on the AAC but its own page scopes it to advising, tutoring, accessibility services and emergency grants, not conduct accompaniment, and does not describe itself as independent or confidential — not used for this row. Nothing paraphrase-pending. Archive captures pending — not requested this pass (unattended scheduled run). Reviewer: Carrie Schluter (review confirmed 2026-10-14).

2026-10-15 — Internet Archive captures requested this date by an automated capture pass; 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: catalog.smsu.edu — G-005 Academic Appeals Policy → https://web.archive.org/web/20261015124604/https://catalog.smsu.edu/policies-procedures/academic-appeals/; A-032 Academic Honesty → https://web.archive.org/web/20261015124638/https://catalog.smsu.edu/policies-procedures/academic-honesty/; G-005.4 Academic Dishonesty Appeals → https://web.archive.org/web/20261015124804/https://catalog.smsu.edu/policies-procedures/g0054/; directory.smsu.edu — President's Cabinet → https://web.archive.org/web/20261015124834/https://directory.smsu.edu/administration/president/cabinet.html; D2L Brightspace — Faculty & Staff Information → https://web.archive.org/web/20261015124906/https://services.smsu.edu/TDClient/180/Portal/KB/PrintArticle?ID=2506.

Spot an error or an outdated quotation? hello@gatheredwork.com — corrections are made on the record, in this log.