For the first time in a decade,, the academic misconduct policy has been changed to allow for informal resolutions and label misuse of AI as misconduct. The policy was revised in spring 2025 and went into effect last fall. 

With the new changes, all informal resolutions are possible. Academic misconduct was previously resolved before a panel of three people. Informal resolutions include a discussion between a student and faculty member where there is a decision to have the student redo the assignment or schedule a meeting with the Writing Center or Strategies, Organization and Achievement Resources. In an informal resolution, the occurrence of misconduct and the outcome do not appear on the student’s conduct record. Informal resolutions are only for those who have not had a history with the Student Conduct office. 

The goal of changing resolution tactics is to allow students to learn from their mistakes and give them another chance to do assignments. The goal of the informal hearings is to allow students the “opportunity to learn and grow” because everyone “makes mistakes” and students may be in positions where they are “completely overwhelmed” and may not have managed their time well, said Bridget Burnhisel, the Director of Student Conduct

Since the implementation of the new, more forgiving option of an informal resolution, there has been an uptick of academic misconduct cases, according to Burnhisel. The Fall 2025 semester had 41 more cases than the fall 2024 semester. This, said Burnhisel, is because “faculty are utilizing it more” because for low level assignments, the misconduct process was too severe. 

Also included in the new academic misconduct policy is the inclusion of AI misuse in Dickinson’s definition of misconduct. Prior to the revision in the spring semester of 2025, the actions that fell under academic misconduct were cheating, plagiarism, and falsifying documents. Now, misuse of AI is included in the definition of academic misconduct. However, faculty strongly encourage students to check their individual class’ syllabus because every class has a different policy regarding AI use, ranging from AI not being permitted at all in any circumstance to AI being permitted for some assignments for research, organization, and idea generation. 

When there is an instance of academic dishonesty, whether plagiarism, cheating, falsifying documents or AI misuse, a faculty member will alert Student Conduct to the misconduct allegation and provide documentation of the incident. Student Conduct will then reach out to the student. If the student accepts responsibility, either an informal resolution or administrative hearing (one on one discussion with a hearing chair) will occur. If the student does not accept responsibility, the student and their case will have to go before a panel of three faculty members who will determine whether the student is responsible for that academic misconduct.