Student Code of Conduct

Community Standards and Values

As a diverse community of learners and stewards of scholarship, all members of the University of New Hampshire communities are expected to uphold the highest standards of mutual respect and integrity. These core values are key components of the UNH experience and reflect the expectations of its students.

Students must be able to live, work, and learn in an environment that deliberately seeks multiple perspectives and supports the free and open exchange of ideas through educational discourse. Students who engage in prohibited academic and behavioral conduct interfere with their ability, and the ability of others, to take full advantage of university life, and will thus be subject to disciplinary action through the university-wide conduct system.

Oversight and Administration 

The Office of Community Standards is responsible for interpreting and enforcing the Student Code of Conduct and administering the university-wide conduct system. Community Standards will ensure that the rights of all students are guaranteed, and those engaged in the conduct process are afforded a fair, equitable, and meaningful opportunity to address allegations of prohibited conduct.

The University’s disciplinary processes are not legal proceedings and thus do not embody, in structure or spirit, an adversarial framework or adopt the rules that govern civil or criminal legal proceedings. The University’s disciplinary system should not be conflated with legal processes, and disciplinary proceedings enjoy neither the advantages nor the limitations inherent in legal paradigms.

Essential to its mission, the Office of Community Standards provides a continuum of high-impact practices and interventions, as pathways for enhanced reflection, accountability, and ethical development, that prepares students to lead lives of consequence. The established policies and behavioral expectations outlined in the Student Code of Conduct are intended to preserve and protect the University’s educational mission of teaching, research, and public service.  

Student Code of Conduct Purpose and Philosophy

The Student Code of Conduct is the official statement of university policies and regulations, and expected standards of behaviors that are applicable to all students. The primary purpose of policies and regulations, and the articulation of expected standards of student conduct, is to further the mission of the University and to protect the well-being of the community. These policies and regulations enable all the members of the University to function as a community and respond to situations that threaten or violate that community.

Policies and regulations are to be understood in the larger context of the functioning of the University and with sensitivity to the reality that the University is not an abstract entity, but rather a sum of its individual units and community members. Rigid conformity to and narrow application of policies and regulations without taking into account the larger context of the functioning of the University are not appropriate in our academic community.

Policies and regulations are often not more specific than necessary and often are general enough to allow the University to respond to situations in their unique complexities and take into account the variations in values and goals of different University academic units and administrative offices. As such, they provide a broad framework that is designed to create a level of consistency across the University yet also accommodate local cultures. The University will create new policies and procedures and modify existing ones to address new issues and questions, and to reflect the evolution of our community and the larger society within which our community exists.