Instructor:
Brett A. Sokolow, J.D., President, The National Center for Higher Education Risk Management

Description:
This workshop will establish a comprehensive framework for participants to create values-based conduct codes that engage students in identifying shared values and can help to make colleges safer learning environments where fewer members of the community engage in policy violations. This workshop will help participants to focus on identifying core values related to student conduct, and expressing those values as a means of enhancing campus safety and student health. Does your conduct code reflect that you are a public research institution? Does it reflect that you are a small, private liberal arts college? Do the Catholic values of your community show through your code? Does your code harness policies as a critical tool of prevention? This intensive workshop will get participants thinking and writing, as we skill-build and focus on drafting rules and policies that are educational and developmental. We will learn that policies and rules are different, and how to draft both for a new audience. A set of principles undergirds developmental, educational codes. We will explore in this workshop the following six concepts:

1. How to de-legalize code language and formats
2. How to maximize flexibility but minimize vagueness-the artful code
3. How to focus on the elements of policy infractions, to make policies easier to understand
4. Creative use of examples
5. Expressing your community's core values within your code and policies
6. Creating transparent, user-friendly policies and procedures

Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Distinguish rules from policies, and policies from procedures
• De-legalize code language and formats
• Maximize flexibility but minimize vagueness-the artful code
• Focus on the elements of policy infractions, to make policies easier to understand
• Creatively use examples within policies
• Express their community's core values within code and policies
• Create transparent, user-friendly policies and procedures

Participant Expectations:
Participants should plan to spend approximately 3 to 4 hours per week in this course. This will include time to read materials, complete on-line exercises and surveys and participate in asynchronous on-line discussions. Participants will need to log on for course content that will be posted weekly. In addition participants will need to respond to questions posted on the discussion board each week. As the discussion board is asynchronous, students may check in and post at their convenience. This learning tool will be an important part of participant's learning experience.

Instructor Bio:
Brett Sokolow is a higher education attorney and President of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management in Malvern, PA (www.ncherm.org). NCHERM represents ten colleges as outside counsel and has served in a consulting capacity to more than 500 other colleges and universities. NCHERM offers specialized consultation on high-risk student health and safety issues, including harassment, sexual assault, problem drinking, hazing, and mental health. Sokolow is the author of ten books and more than 50 articles on student affairs and higher education legal topics. He is Editor Emeritus of the Report on Campus Safety & Student Development, and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Council on Law in Higher Education. He is Vice Chair for Education of the ACPA Commission on Student Conduct and Legal Issues.