When Chris Avenir helped set up a Facebook study group for a chemistry class at Ryerson he had no idea that it could get him expelled. Ryerson has charged the first-year engineering student with 147 counts of academic misconduct—one for each student in the study group—accusing him of cheating.
The charges came when Avenir’s professor, Andrew McWilliams, heard about the Facebook group after marks for the class had already been issued.
Avenir said the administration is mishandling the situation because they don’t have a clear Internet use policy. “I don’t really see how it’s justified. I can understand how the original creator, when he put in the group’s description, might have brought in some questionable thoughts, but I don’t think that jumping to conclusions and assumptions and hiding behind a very vague policy really justifies any of what’s going on right now,” he said.
The group’s main page bore the message: “If you request to join, please use the forms [sic.] to discuss/post solutions to the chemistry assignments. Please input your solutions if they are not already posted.”
Despite this, no evidence exists that anyone actually provided solutions, which would constitute an academic offense. “I myself didn’t post any solutions […] It’s just a whole bunch of assumptions right now,” said Avenir of the administration’s charges.
Avenir joined the group after it was well established. Students had to wait up to two weeks to be accepted to the group by its creator, so Avenir volunteered to become a co-administrator. The other administrator’s identity is unknown because he used an alias.
On Tuesday, Avenir faces an expulsion hearing with the engineering faculty appeals committee. Kim Neale, advocacy co-ordinator for the Ryerson Students’ Union will represent him at the hearing.
“All these students are scared shitless now about using Facebook to talk about schoolwork, when actually it’s no different than any study group working together on homework in a library,” Neale told the Toronto Star.
“People might just be sneakier about it and there shouldn’t be any reason to be sneaky about something as honest as a study group,” said Avenir.
He has prepared a 10-minute presentation for Tuesday and is planning to seek “clarification” of the decision from his professor, who will be at the hearing.
Should Avenir lose his appeal, he said he plans to take his case directly to the university’s senate. Nora Loreto, president of the Ryerson Students’ Union said that the odds of complete exoneration at appeal hearings are “stacked against students,” but she nonetheless remains optimistic.
James Norrie, director of Ryerson’s School of Information and Technology, has defended the school’s decision to expel Avenir. “This is being painted as a generational issue and it’s not,” Norrie told the CanWest news service. “We are not a bunch of old farts who are afraid of technology.”
When asked whether he would create another online study group given all that has happened, Avenir said “definitely” without hesitation. He added, however, that he would create the group himself and would make sure there was no questionable wording in the group’s title or description.
Avenir has not received support from the Ryerson Engineering Student Society.
Very few schools address online behavior in their academic code. Ryerson is one of the few schools in the process of rewriting their code to handle the Internet. The student group “Stop the NADS [non-academic disciplinary suspensions],” headed by Loreto, is fighting the proposed changes to Policies 60 and 61. At press time, “Stop the NADS” had 179 members on its Facebook group.
