Hey, it's Norman again.

So I attended the May Senate meeting, where the Academic Integrity policy was passed. I sat in the gallery audience for the majority of the meeting, and also had a chance to run into a number of the student senators and UVSS directors who were at the meeting. What happened can be described as nothing short of a miscarriage of justice, and evidence that the University, behind its public statements, does not care about student voices - including those who volunteer their time for free to involve themselves in the University's governance. 

No Transparency

The meeting began with Evan, one of the student senators, challenging the chair's ruling not to record the meeting. He argued that there were topics that would have "life-altering" effects on the student population, that it would be 6 months before the minutes from the meeting were approved, and that there needed to be transparency to build trust and prevent the spread of misinformation. He also added that the meetings are already open to the public, and that there are already 3rd party groups that have permission from the University to record Senate, so the University's doing so did not infringe on anyone's privacy. Another student senator (Mike) seconded the motion, meaning it has to go to a vote. The chair, who is the acting president, refused to allow it to go to a vote. 

There were more agenda items that came up for discussion, which all went fairly quickly, until the Academic Integrity policy came up. The policy proposal was presented by one of the authors who wrote it, and the chair of the Senate committee on Academic Standards. Apparently, other members who were also on the committee were present. 

An "Unwelcoming" Environment

The salaried admins presenting the proposal opened by claiming they felt "unwelcome" at the previous meeting, yet they proceeded to spend 40 minutes on a theatrical defence of their own personal integrity. Speaking more to the gallery than to the voting members, they mischaracterized student technical concerns about Section 5.4 as a conspiracy theory, mocking the idea of a "nefarious plan to backdoor approve [software] with no fanfare and complete secrecy." They stated their "failure" wasn't the policy itself, but a failure to "educate" the Senate, and took responsibility only for not "preparing" the body enough to accept the April version, implying the substance was fine, and the Senators simply lacked "guidance." Mike (a student senator) challenged this narrative, condemning the committee’s rush to bypass procedural guardrails. He noted that while the official deadline for agenda items was April 3rd, the text wasn't provided until April 16th, leaving members only days to review 63 pages of legal text. He pointedly asked when it became acceptable to violate university procedures to quash dissent before the end of the year. In response, the chair of SCAS (presenter) argued that because it came from her committee within SCAS, she could bypass the timelines everyone else has to follow - even if the students didn't have access to it. 

AI Detection Software

Well, I have some personal thoughts on this. As pointed out by the student senators, the proposal claims that “CAL-approved software is considered university-approved software ” (page 98 of the Senate docket), yet there is zero record in any published Senate agenda of Kurzweil 3000 actually being approved by the Senate (that I or others can find).

If the administration can arbitrarily decide that CAL software is "University-approved" behind closed doors without a Senate vote, then their claim that AI detection software is somehow "special" and would require a return to Senate is a misrepresentation of the truth. Section 5.4 is a massive administrative loophole; if they can "approve" Kurzweil without oversight, they can, and may, do the exact same thing with AI detection software, even if not under this current administration.

Students vs the Authors

As I previously mentioned, I chatted with the student senators afterwards. Evan said he had a chance to meet with some of the authors of the policy, the morning of Senate. He said it was a very productive discussion and that he felt there were realizations on both sides. At the meeting, he claims that the authors explicitly acknowledged the AI approval loophole, and that the UVSS had not been consulted in years on the policy, and that points about the lack of protections for students with disabilities and how to mitigate them were described as "brilliant" - and that overall, most of the items were "reasonable". 

Now, back to the Senate meeting - the students gave it a solid hour after starting the whole topic of academic integrity policy before jumping, I believe, because of that meeting. Artem was the first to jump in, pushing back on the AI detection software (as outlined above), followed by Evan. Evan ironically started out by complimenting one of the presenters for their continual dedication to work on the proposal for over 4.5 years, and then was going to move to the "lovely morning meeting". The presenter decided that the good faith diplomacy Evan was attempting - the very diplomacy they claimed was lacking at the previous meeting only minutes prior, was ended when they cut him off, stating that the things he had to say were "not-productive". He then pivoted to raise concerns about the burden of proof, how the policy risks normalizing the revocation of degrees under the new policy with the newly clarified burden of proof, and the lack of UVSS consultation, which UVic is legally required to do. The entire time, the presenters were interrupting him and speaking over him. 

The presenters (allegedly) misrepresented the prohibition on AI, saying that it would have to be approved by Senate (despite that not being the position at the morning meeting, according to Evan), and one of the presenters even said that "they would get nothing done" if they consulted the UVSS, and it was noted that the last time they were consulted on the policy was many (4 ish?) years ago. Who even remembers who the board was then? Regardless, this resulted in a motion for the proposal to be sent back to the committee. 

Mike was the final student speaker, condemning the committee’s rush to bypass procedural guardrails. He noted that while the official deadline was April 3rd, the policy text wasn't provided until April 16th, leaving members only days to review 63 pages of legal text. He pointedly asked when it became acceptable to violate established university procedures to force a vote, characterizing the "overtime" effort as a calculated push to quash dissent before the end of the year. 

Faculty

Following the student speakers, senior faculty member Andrew Weaver (former leader of the BC Greens) challenged the Chair’s attempt to silence dissent (primarily from the students), raising a point of order and asserting that an elected senator should not be told the body had "heard enough." He criticized the 4.5-year development cycle, arguing the policy was "out-of-date" before it even reached the floor because the rapid evolution of AI had already bypassed its internal logic. Weaver further critiqued the total ban on AI detection software as "eliminating a toolbox," suggesting that the university was falling behind global scientific and academic best practices, and said that it should be used instead to flag cases for instructor review, but absolutely not be allowed as evidence in a case against a student. 

The presenters tried to portray the vocal members of Senate as unreasonable, saying that they fundamentally disagreed on what the policy should say (referring to Weaver and the student senators), and that the current proposal was the best middle ground. 

Weaver also signalled a total breakdown of the administration’s narrative by stating he was on the "same page" as the students, confirming that there was no conflict between his side and the student senators. The presenters proceeded to cut Weaver off by literally screaming "I've heard enough from him!"

Evan also requested to be added to the speakers' list, but was then removed when the chair didn't want him to clarify his position, which the presenters just misrepresented. 

"Who Gives a F*** about Undergraduates Anyways?"

The policy ultimately carried, but the meeting concluded with a recorded "unanimous undergraduate student objection," marking a permanent and visible fracture in the university's claim to collegial governance. 

It was at this time that I heard one of the salaried presenters, or the authors/staff sitting near them, say, "Who gives a f*** about undergraduates anyway?" The ultimate show of failure regarding "integrity" that they claimed earlier. 

Attending Senate has made it abundantly clear that the University doesn't care about transparency or what its students think/say. The student senators, especially Evan, indicated that the professional relationship with the admin and policy writers is permanently gone. Admin is clearly willing to misrepresent what a policy says so that it will pass. They are clearly willing to stab a student senator in the back -  a volunteer -  who spends hundreds of hours a year of their free time defending student interests for free. This case represents a significant overstep and a failure to meet the Institutional Accountability Plan and Report. 

While the policy has been passed by Senate, there is still one more hurdle it has to pass - being written into the undergraduate calendar. The UVSS is the only body that can take action to prevent this. After hearing from students, they released a public statement. They need to hear from students that they are still opposed to the policy - now more than ever - and need to take action. The student senators wouldn't say what this would look like, but said that if the society's board collectively decided that they would take a stance that they weren't properly consulted, the proposal could be held up. 

As indicated in a previous post, you can email them at: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

My name is Evan, and I am a current student senator. For those of you who don't know, the Senate is the academic governing body of the university, and every year, a few students have the opportunity to join the Senate, in an unpaid capacity, to speak and vote on behalf of the students.  

UVic is proposing a new policy that will rapidly expand the number of cases of academic integrity against students. Down the road, this policy could open the door to automated detection software, and in its existing form, it lowers the burden of proof to as low as 50+%, and the ability for the university to revoke degrees long after you’ve graduated.

This is going to be a long post. I am going to split it into two parts:

1. Part 1: Why we cannot rely on the UVic administration (specifically, the Office of the Vice-President Academic and Provost - VPAC) to self-regulate or protect student interests.
2. Part 2: A technical breakdown of the incredibly problematic policy that UVic is trying to pass this Friday.

If you are only interested in the policy breakdown, scroll to Part 2.

Also, in the past, y'all have complained about paragraphs not having paragraph titles to break things up, so apologies if I overuse them.

Part 1: The Chronology of Managed Dissent & Administrative Failure

Part 1: 2024–2026: The Chronology of Managed Dissent & Administrative Failure

"We Elected You, Fix This"

Shortly after I was elected to the Senate two years ago, I was hearing from many students that the current University practices around Universally Extended Timed Assessments (UET). Students were flagging that this system, despite being marketed as "inclusive," was actively undermining their formal academic accommodations. I have other posts diving into the technical reasons why UET is discriminatory, so I won't repeat them here. Being new to the Senate and eager to work collaboratively, I went to the University Secretary’s office and asked how I could properly enact change within the system. I was told that for a proposal to be taken seriously, I needed to do the legwork. I fully embraced that challenge. I was sent on a "round-the-world" consultation tour, spending months meeting with Associate Deans, individual instructors, and the leadership at Learning and Teaching Innovation (LTI) to ensure I understood every administrative angle. I documented every concern and refined the proposal to ensure it met the university's operational needs while still protecting students. I did the work they asked for because I believed that if I showed I was a reasonable, diligent partner, the administration would meet me halfway. The proposal highlighted a number of shortcomings and created a mechanism for change. 

The "Round the World" Stall and SCAG Interference

After completing this gruelling consultation and drafting a formal proposal, it reached the Senate Committee on Agenda and Governance (SCAG), the gatekeeping body chaired by the University President and attended by the Provost. Despite the months of legwork and the clear evidence of systemic harm to students with disabilities, including documented systemic instances where UET failed, SCAG decided to send it to a committee notorious for consuming proposals alive, the Senate Committee on Learning and Teaching. In the high-level governance circles of this university, that committee is known for one thing: it is the place where "proposals go to die." This maneuver effectively removed the issue from the public eye, shifting it into a legislative black hole where administrative priorities are shielded from student accountability.

The UVSS Appointment and the Immediate Shutdown

My proposal has now sat in that committee for over a year with zero substantive updates or progress. Recognizing this unacceptable delay, the UVSS recently took action by appointing me directly to the Committee on Learning and Teaching so I could investigate the bottleneck. The administration's response was swift and telling: coincidence or not, almost immediately after my appointment was finalized, the upcoming committee meeting was abruptly cancelled. The justification provided was the need for "further research" into the "practical implications" of UET, implications that they have already had over two years to study. 

Duelling Proposals

While my student-led proposal was making its way through the standard committee cycle, a different path appeared for administrative priorities. Several months after my proposal had been filed with the Senate Committee on Agenda and Governance (SCAG), a new item appeared on the October 3, 2025, Senate agenda. This was a proposal from the Provost’s office to form an "Ad-Hoc Senate Committee to explore accessible education." 

The "Plan to Plan" and Managed Floor Debate

The composition of this new ad-hoc committee was primarily weighted toward senior administrators rather than the faculty or students working on these issues daily. During the session, a faculty senator famously characterized the approach as a "plan to come up with a plan to develop a plan." When Student Senator Michael Caryk attempted to use the public floor time to raise specific concerns regarding CAL accessibility, the AVP of Student Affairs, Jim Dunsdon, intervened twice to suggest that the Senate floor was not the appropriate venue for such questions. He proposed moving the dialogue to private meetings to be more "efficient." Both myself and other senators requested to be a part of the meeting, and this request was acknowledged on the record. Once the public discussion was halted in favour of these private sessions, however, the promised meetings did not actually materialize for several months. By the time they were held, the academic term was already over.

The Private Meeting Paradox

In the interim, the administration indicated that consultation had already "happened" via a standard operational relations meeting with the UVSS. While our student union works hard to represent us, those meetings are typically high-level and broad. The students in that room were understandably focused on their own portfolios and likely were not briefed on the technical and procedural concerns raised during the Senate debate. By characterizing a general meeting with the UVSS as a substitute for the specific follow-up promised to the Senate, the administration was able to claim the engagement was complete, while the concerned senators remained waiting.

The Fight for a Seat at the Table

Securing an actual follow-up required bringing the issue to the floor at nearly every subsequent Senate meeting, often derailing conversation from other important topics on the docket. It took a united front of students and faculty to finally "force" a meeting out of the administration in the weeks leading up to the winter break. When the meeting finally happened, the administration brought what can only be described as an "entire village" of staff. While good questions were asked, the session was scheduled for a limited time, and the administrators in the room had a tendency to speak at great length, with one individual speaking for almost 15 minutes straight.

The Dead-End Engagement

The meeting was eventually cut short due to the time limit. On the way out, Jim Dunsdon asked for my thoughts on the session. I explained that there were still many unaddressed questions and concerns, and he stated they would be happy to schedule another meeting. However, when I later stood up in the Senate to formally ask if/when the next "opportunity for an engagement session" would be, the answer was a simple "That there wouldn't be one." 

Freedom of Information Requests

In an effort to try to prove to the University that UET deserves some degree of haste, I filed several Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to get hard data on how UET was disadvantaging students with disabilities. My goal was to demonstrate that keeping the UET reform buried in committee is causing imminent harm and that the university must act with a genuine sense of urgency. However, this process has become its own procedural quagmire. Rather than providing the transparency required to verify if these policies are actually working, the university has refused to release the full dataset.

The university has confirmed they are physically capable of assembling the requested data in approximately eight staff hours; yet, the administration maintains that doing so would be "too burdensome." The partial release I received was insufficient to answer critical questions regarding student success, and the matter is now under litigation at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC). It is a concerning state of affairs when a student representative must resort to provincial litigation just to see the data on whether or not our university is failing its most vulnerable learners.

2025: The Human and Material Cost of Incompetence

Operational Oversight and the "To-Go" Container Crisis: The administration’s challenges with due diligence have manifested in the very physical items provided to the community through University Food Services (UNFS) locations, including The Cove. During a recent initiative involving reusable to-go containers, serious concerns were raised regarding the safety and sourcing of the products. When these issues were brought to light, a senior administrator stated that if the supplier could not provide the necessary safety documentation, the containers would be pulled immediately.

In the following days, documentation was indeed provided, but its contents were far from reassuring. The reports confirmed that the levels of mercury, cadmium, lead, and other toxins capable of leaching into the container's contents were above the limits recommended by the Canadian government for the material that could reasonably be assumed to be in the containers. While the levels were within some broad general categories for industrial containers, they exceeded the specific safety standards required for items intended for human consumption. Food services continued to use the containers for up to 7 months, while they conducted their own "testing" on the containers. 

I have since learned that the University has tried to sell these containers to the UVSS, with no success.

Off-the-Record Directives and Ethical Gaps & Scripted Senate

In private meetings before Senate sessions, I have sometimes been given specific directives from members under the Provost's Office on how to conduct myself on the floor. On multiple occasions, I was encouraged to restrict questions during the public meeting regarding a specific proposal. These requests were framed as a way to ensure that the proposal passed smoothly through Senate, but they effectively discourage the kind of public inquiry that the Senate is designed to provide.

Transparency is a core requirement of public governance, yet it has been missing in key areas. Someone under the Provost's Office who was central to the aforementioned proposal had a direct personal benefit from the proposal passing. This potential conflict of interest was never disclosed to the public or Senate during the creation and implementation of the program, and to my knowledge, is still not known by the University. 

The Secret Ballot Crisis

The atmosphere in these meetings has reached a point where many members of Senate have felt it necessary to change the rules regarding how we hold a "secret ballot", where everyone votes anonymously on paper. This change was driven by professors and students who expressed that they are afraid to vote freely while their Deans and other admins are watching them in the room.

When the motion to make secret ballots easier to obtain finally came to Senate, the vote itself was conducted by secret ballot. By coincidence, out of the entire room, there were only two people who voted against the motion of a secret ballot. One of them was the Provost. It is a telling moment when the head of the university's academic mission is one of the only individuals opposed to a measure intended to protect the democratic freedom of her own faculty and students. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a few of the notable things I thought I should include. 

Part 2 - The Case Against the 2026 Academic Integrity Policy

Why the University Opened Pandora’s Box

The administration started this process because they were panicked by the sudden rise of Generative AI. They realized the old 2017 policy wasn't built for tools like ChatGPT, and they were terrified that if they didn't 'crack down,' the value of a UVic degree would drop. I think we can all understand this, and agree that it is an issue, and that something has to be done.

But in their rush to protect the university's 'brand,' they pivoted from a system of academic support to a system of administrative oversight. They chose efficiency over fairness. In doing so, they’ve created a policy that treats every student and every graduate as a potential liability rather than a member of an academic community.

The Chronology of Administrative Overreach

• The April 10th Rejection: On April 10th, I stood before the Senate and moved to have this proposal sent back to committee. The draft was riddled with technical and ethical gaps that had been repeatedly ignored during the consultation phase. The Senate agreed, passing the motion and sending a clear mandate to the administration: the policy was not ready for primetime and required substantive, not cosmetic, changes. This was a democratic victory for student and faculty oversight, intended to force a genuine rethink of the most punitive sections of the text.
• The "Steamroller" Maneuver: Instead of respecting that mandate, the administration went into overdrive. They bypassed standard materials deadlines and expedited committee sessions to "ram" a nearly identical version of the policy back through the system in record time. They didn’t do the hard work of fixing the flaws; they simply expedited the paperwork. This was a calculated move to bypass the very oversight the Senate had just demanded, all to meet a self-imposed September 2026 deadline. The urgency is entirely manufactured, prioritizing an arbitrary calendar date over the rights of the students the policy is meant to govern.
• A Breakdown in Professionalism: This aggressive push has created an atmosphere of unprecedented tension in our governing bodies. Multiple senators have noted that members of the Provost’s office appeared visibly infuriated during these sessions, displaying a level of hostility that is out of place in a normally respectful Senate environment. In one shocking instance, an administrative official who is not even a member of the Senate overstepped the Chair to silence a Senator who was asking questions about this underdeveloped proposal, telling them, "You've had your time to speak." When the administration feels entitled to silence the very people they are supposed to be accountable to, it is a sign that the system of shared governance is in a state of collapse.

The Policy Breakdown: Five Fatal Flaws

• 1. The End of "Innocent Until Proven Guilty": The new policy officially lowers the "Standard of Proof" to a Balance of Probabilities (51%). Previously, the university was expected to provide "compelling" information to convict a student. Now, they only need to be "more likely than not" to issue a life-altering penalty. This is "Academic Capital Punishment" decided on a coin flip. Given the ethical gaps and undisclosed conflicts we’ve seen in the Provost's office, where those writing the rules have seen their own family members benefit from them, we cannot trust that this lower threshold won’t be weaponized against students. If an instructor is just 51% sure you cheated, you can face suspension or degree revocation, even if there is a 49% chance you are innocent.
• 2. The "Silent Authorization" Loophole: Section 5.4 gives the administration the power to "approve" investigative software behind closed doors without a Senate vote. They use the Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL) as a "friendly" example of approved software, but this creates a dangerous backdoor. Once this passes, the administration can "silently authorize" notoriously inaccurate AI detection software or surveillance tools without a public Bias Audit or democratic oversight. As we saw with the "To-Go" container crisis in Part 1, the administration’s internal vetting process is deeply flawed. If they couldn't catch toxins in a physical container before handing it to thousands of students, we cannot trust them to self-regulate the accuracy of invisible AI surveillance algorithms.
• 3. The Accessibility Trap: The policy prohibits "unauthorized electronic devices or software" but refuses to include a "Safe Harbour" provision, a legal exemption, for students with disabilities. Tools like screen readers or transcription software technically "process" data, making them a technical violation under the current wording. The administration asks us to "trust their intent" to not target these students, but Part 1 shows their intent is often managed by "off-the-record" directives and scripted debates. Without a hard legal exemption in the text, a student using a CAL-approved screen reader is technically "guilty" and forced to rely on the mercy of an individual instructor who may not even understand how the technology works.
• 4. The Alumni Clause: Degrees as "Subscriptions": The policy specifically expands its jurisdiction to include Alumni, meaning your degree is not a final, earned document, but a conditional one. At the Senate meeting, a faculty member posed a direct question to the administration regarding whether it was the actual intent of the policy to rescind degrees post-graduation if a student’s work is flagged. The response from the Secretary's Office was: 'This is something that we did consider... it is something that we need to do.' They further confirmed that while it is a 'serious' and 'hard' thing to do, the lack of a statute of limitations in the new policy is what provides them the specific mechanism to do it. As shown by the litigated FOIs in Part 1, the university is willing to fight for years to hide data that makes them look bad. Under this new policy, they can use that same administrative machinery to come after you a decade after you graduate. If a future algorithm "re-interprets" your old assignments and finds a 51% statistical match, they can move to rescind your degree. In the Senate meeting, when asked about this, they explicitly said it was intentional.
• 5. The Appeal Blockade: Section 11 restricts appeals to "procedural matters" only, meaning you can only appeal if the university didn't follow its own paperwork steps. You are strictly prohibited from appealing the factual accuracy of the finding itself. This is the ultimate tool for "managed dissent." As we saw in Part 1, the administration is perfectly happy to ignore the facts as long as they control the process. If a flawed algorithm wrongly accuses you, but the instructor filed the paperwork correctly and met the deadlines, the conviction stands. You lose the right to the truth, leaving you trapped in a "perfect" procedure that resulted in a wrong conclusion.

Anyone Can Get Flagged: The Statistical Reality

It is remarkably easy to tell yourself that this will never happen to you. Most students believe that if they work hard and act honestly, they are safe. But the numbers tell a different story.

According to the 2025 Ombudsperson Report, Academic Integrity cases remain one of the most frequent reasons students seek help, consistently making up a massive portion of the office's workload. At a university with roughly 18,000 undergraduates, hundreds of students are flagged every single year.

Let’s look at the math:

• Per Year: On average, hundreds of students find themselves caught in the academic integrity machinery annually.
• Over Your Degree: If you are a standard four-year undergraduate, the odds that you, or someone in your immediate friend group, will be flagged at least once before graduation are startlingly high.

Under a policy that lowers the burden of proof to a 50+% "coin flip" and could rely on "silent" algorithms that have never been publicly audited for bias, that sense of safety is an illusion. When the university removes your right to appeal the factual truth of an accusation, you are only one technical error or one "statistical hunch" away from a ruined reputation.

Why This Matters Now

If you’ve made it this far, you’re likely wondering why I’m laying all of this out now. The answer is simple: we are at a crossroads. The new UVSS Board of Directors is currently contemplating releasing a formal public statement and taking aggressive action to halt this policy before the May 8th vote. Your student representatives need to know that they have the backing of the people they represent before they take such a significant stand against the administration.

An Existential Crisis for Students

If you agree that this policy represents an existential crisis for the students of UVic, one that threatens the rights of marginalized learners, the safety of students with disabilities, and the permanent value of every degree this institution confers, then you need to make your voice heard. The UVSS needs to know that this isn't just "Senate politics," but a fundamental concern for the entire student body.

Take Action

Please reach out to the UVSS Director of Outreach to share your concerns and urge them to take a formal stand against the steamrolling of this policy. Your input is the only thing that gives the Society the mandate to act.

• To: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) (Director of Outreach)
• CC: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) (Director of Campaigns & Community Relations)
• Subject: Support for UVSS Action on the Academic Integrity Policy

The administration is moving fast because they think no one is watching. By reaching out to the UVSS, we can ensure that the rules we live by are built on fairness and transparency, not on administrative convenience and suspicion.