UCSC Graduate
Student Association
Home Travel Grants Other GSA Grants People Committees Meetings & Minutes Campus Resources

Committee for the Ethical Treatment of Graduate Students

The GSA has recently formed the Committee for the Ethical Treatment of Graduate Students to address issues raised by some members of the council. This was in response to two articles from Physics Today, concerned about ethics within the profession, particularly palgerism of data. They did a survey and found that the major ethical problem in the field was actually mistreatment of subordinates by faculty.

  • To see the Physics Today articles, click here and here (Adobe Acrobat required).
  • In response to graduate student concerns, the CETGS wrote a letter to the Graduate Council, which is the faculty group in charge of graduate education at UCSC. To see a copy of this letter, click here.
  • If you would like to contribute to the case studies of instances of unfair treatment of graduate students, click here to anonymously share your story or a story of someone you know.
The goal of this committee is to prevent abuse and misunderstandings between graduate students and faculty. One must acknowledge the intensely personal nature of the relationship between a graduate student and their advisor. To inform all involved parties of their mentoring rights and responsibilities, the CETGS has produced the Mentoring Guidelines, which are endorsed by the Graduate Council and approved by the Dean of Graduate Studies (9/11/2006).

The GSA would like to emphasize that COMMUNICATION is the best way to prevent problems from arising and growing.

Many graduate students do not know how to access information on the rights and responsibilities of faculty.  These are specified by the Academic Senate Manual in the Faculty Code of Conduct. The following excerpts may be of interest from the Faculty Code of Conduct:

Regarding ethical principles of faculty:
  • "Professors make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to assure that their evaluations of students reflect each student's true merit. They respect the confidential nature of the relationship between professor and students. They avoid any exploitation, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students. They acknowledge significant academic or scholarly assistance from them. They protect their academic freedom." (American Association of University Professors Statement, 1966; Revised, 1987)

Types of unacceptable conduct may include:

  • "violation of canons of intellectual honesty, such as research misconduct and/or intentional misappropriation of the writings, research and findings of others."
  • "Forcible detention, threats of physical harm to, or harassment of another member of the University community, that interferes with that person's performance of University activities."
  • "Discrimination, including harassment, against University employees on political grounds, or for reasons of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, national origin, ancestry, marital status, medical condition, status as a covered veteran or, within the limits imposed by law or University regulations, because of age or citizenship, or for other arbitrary or personal reasons."
  • "Violation of the University policy, including the pertinent guidelines, applying to nondiscrimination against employees on the basis of disability."
However, please keep in mind that "No disciplinary action may commence" against a faculty member "if more than three years have passed between the time when the Chancellor knew or should have known about the alleged violation of the Faculty Code of Conduct and the delivery of the notice of proposed disciplinary action." All faculty members have a right to a hearing and confidentiality.


To join this committee, please email us at gsa@ucsc.edu.

Back to top

Contact GSA: