Western Carolina University.

Detection status: No AI-writing detector, or any dedicated AI-use policy, is named on WCU's own IT, library, or academic-integrity pages across a named-vendor and category sweep; Turnitin is confirmed only as a plagiarism-detection tool instructors may require
Office in these sources: Division of Enrollment Management and Student Success (Academic Integrity Policy contact: Travis Bulluck, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Success) · 828.227.7753 · tlbulluck@wcu.edu
Ombuds or advocacy office: None located on the institution's own pages in this review. WCU's current "Complaints and Concerns" page routes every category of student concern to a specific office (conduct, housing, bias, wellbeing) and names no confidential or independent advocate; it does not mention an ombuds at all
Sources last checked: Sep 29, 2026

Reproduced from the institution's own pages quoted below — potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any case.

WCU's published sources on AI detection and academic integrity, quoted and linked below. These are potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any case — course syllabi and department rules may also apply, and WCU's own pages state that faculty set their own classroom rules on AI use. Confirm applicability with the institution. Any dates are quoted from the sources, not a deadline calculation performed for you.

01Detection status

No AI-writing detector is documented as deployed at WCU

Named-vendor sweep of wcu.edu, affiliate.wcu.edu, and researchguides.wcu.edu (Turnitin, Turnitin AI writing indicator, SimCheck, Originality, Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus, Examity) found only Turnitin, confirmed for plagiarism checking, in the Coulter Faculty Commons' required-syllabus language (page dated Updated 07/02/2026; retrieved Sep 29, 2026):

"Students may be required to submit written assignments for this class to Turnitin, a web-based plagiarism detection software, prior to submitting the assignment for grading."

Source: Required Syllabus Content — Coulter Faculty Commons. Nothing on this page, or elsewhere in the sweep, names an AI-writing-specific detection feature; the language describes plagiarism detection only.

Category sweep of IT's own AI resource hub and Hunter Library's AI research guide found the same result: WCU documents Artificial Intelligence as a tool it supports for teaching, learning, research, and operations, not as something it screens submissions for (no on-page date on either; retrieved Sep 29, 2026):

"Western Carolina University is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI to support teaching, learning, research, and daily operations. The IT Division works across campus to help use AI in a safe and responsible way."

Source: AI at WCU — Information Technology. The library's own "University Policies" guide page (Last Updated Sep 4, 2026) lists WCU's Academic Integrity Policy, its Student Code of Conduct, and IT policies on software approval and data protection — no AI-writing detection product, and no dedicated AI-use policy, appears among them. Source: University Policies — Artificial Intelligence (AI), Hunter Library.

02Published process

What WCU's own pages say about how cases proceed

Who may be present: Not stated in the sources reviewed. The Academic Integrity Policy names only the instructor's own right to attend later stages — "The instructor may be present during the meeting" with the department head, and "The instructor may be present during the hearing" before the Academic Integrity Board — and states no right for the student to bring an advisor, advocate, or support person of any kind; recording of a meeting or hearing is not addressed either way.
What follows on the record: Not stated in the sources reviewed beyond custody: "The Division of Student Affairs shall serve as the repository for all records associated with allegations and violations associated with the Academic Integrity Policy." No transcript notation, retention period, or third-party disclosure rule is named.

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

From WCU's Academic Integrity Policy (Dean of Students; no on-page revision date; retrieved Sep 29, 2026), which runs through up to five escalating levels — instructor, department head, Academic Integrity Board, and academic Dean:

"Within ten (10) business days of the instructor's knowledge of the alleged violation of the Academic Integrity Policy, the instructor will inform the student of the allegation in writing, including the proposed sanction(s)." "The evidentiary standard for making a decision shall be preponderance of the evidence." "The instructor, department head, Academic Integrity Board, and/or academic Dean may impose academic sanctions permitted by the institution (not to exceed receiving a grade of 'F' for the course). The instructor, department head, Academic Integrity Board, and/or academic Dean may not permanently remove the student from the course or suspend/expel the student from a program or the University." "An appeal to an academic Dean must be limited to the following grounds; 1) a violation of due process or 2) a material deviation from Substantive and Procedural Standards by the UNC Board of Governors (as set forth in the UNC Manual 700.4.1)." "The decision of the academic Dean shall be final."

Source: Academic Integrity Policy — Dean of Students. Each stage of the process carries its own short window (five, seven, or ten business days depending on the step) for the student to request a meeting, appeal, or respond, after which the policy treats silence as a "mutual resolution" that waives further appeal. Behavior serious enough to warrant removal from a course or suspension/expulsion is referred instead to the Associate Vice Chancellor/Dean of Students under the separate Code of Student Conduct, not detailed on this page. 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.

03Source map

Where the documents live

Document	Location
Required Syllabus Content (Turnitin language)	affiliate.wcu.edu/cfc — Required Syllabus Content (Updated 07/02/2026)
AI at WCU (IT resource hub)	wcu.edu — AI at WCU
University Policies — Artificial Intelligence (AI) research guide	researchguides.wcu.edu — University Policies (Last Updated Sep 4, 2026)
Academic Integrity Policy (process, evidentiary standard, sanctions, appeals, records)	wcu.edu — Academic Integrity
Complaints and Concerns (current concern-routing page; no ombuds named)	wcu.edu — Complaints and Concerns

Organizing your own drafts and records to bring to any of this: the records checklist. Capturing the pages above as they read today, and keeping your own dated record beside them: what to do with these sources.

04Change log

Revision history of this page

2026-09-29 — Page created. Automated scheduled pass; no human review is claimed. Named-vendor sweep (Turnitin, Turnitin AI writing indicator, SimCheck, Originality, Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus, Examity) and category sweep (Coulter Faculty Commons' required syllabus content, IT's AI resource hub, and Hunter Library's Artificial Intelligence research guide, including its "University Policies" and "Detecting AI" sub-pages) found Turnitin confirmed only for plagiarism checking; no AI-writing-specific detector and no dedicated AI-use policy is named anywhere on wcu.edu. SLUG NOTE: search results for "WCU" repeatedly surfaced West Chester University of Pennsylvania (wcupa.edu and its Teaching and Learning Center), already built in this collection under the slug wcupa; none of that institution's content was used here, and this page is confirmed to rest only on wcu.edu, affiliate.wcu.edu, and researchguides.wcu.edu sources. First-party material captured: the required-syllabus Turnitin language, the AI at WCU hub, the library's University Policies guide page, and the Academic Integrity Policy in full (Sections 1 through 6). PROCESS SOURCE: the Academic Integrity Policy's five-stage escalation (instructor, department head, Academic Integrity Board, academic Dean, with referral to a separate Code of Student Conduct process for anything beyond a course grade of "F"). SUBSTANTIVE ABSENCE, kept distinct rather than inferred: the policy states the instructor's own right to attend later meetings and hearings but names no right for the student to bring an advisor, advocate, or support person, and does not address recording; nor does it state a transcript notation, retention period, or disclosure rule beyond naming the Division of Student Affairs as records custodian. OMBUDS/ADVOCACY CHECKED, NONE FOUND: third-party sources describe a pilot Ombudsperson position at WCU active from 2013 to 2014 that was not renewed; this is not first-party and is not used to assert a currently defunct office. What is first-party is the absence itself — the current "Complaints and Concerns" page, which is WCU's own live routing page for every category of student concern, names no ombuds or independent advocate anywhere on it. Office contact drawn from the Academic Integrity Policy's own "Contact Us" block (Travis Bulluck, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Success, Division of Enrollment Management and Student Success); no separate "academic integrity office" name or address is published beyond this named contact. Nothing paraphrase-pending. Archive captures pending. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter (review confirmed 2026-09-29).

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