Sexual relationships between undergraduates and faculty members at the College of William & Mary now are prohibited, according to a policy adopted by the school's board of visitors Friday.
Banning "consensual amorous relations," the provision also applies to graduate students "for whom the faculty member has a direct professional responsibility."
"It protects student-faculty relationships by drawing clear lines about what is acceptable and unacceptable," College Faculty Assembly President Colleen J. Kennedy said.
The new policy came one year after former William & Mary writing teacher Sam Kashner published a tell-all article in GQ magazine that detailed his own intimate relationship with a married student. The student's husband, he wrote, later committed suicide.
Though school officials dismissed the article as fiction, its publication prompted the board to re-evaluate faculty standards of conduct.
"The article certainly prompted the board to ask the Faculty Assembly to look into the policy," Kennedy said. Kashner "pulled into the article a couple of things that had happened in the past to other people."
"Whether or not it was fiction, that was one of the things - perhaps the primary thing - that led to our revisiting the issue," said David Armstrong, a member of the Faculty Assembly's academic affairs committee.
Under certain circumstances, the dean does have the power to grant exceptions. The specific criteria for such exemptions, however, are not stated explicitly in the policy. As Armstrong explained, "we wanted the dean to have some flexibility on the issue."
The University's own policy, adopted in 1993, prohibits faculty relationships with students "over whom they are in a position of authority."
Karen Holt, director of equal opportunity programs at the University, said that "in cases where there have been concerns - whether well-founded or not - it has been helpful in contacting the faculty member and pointing it out."
Reactions among the student body at William & Mary seemed favorable toward the new standard.
Student body President Dan Maxey agreed with the change, saying he understood the need for such a policy.
But Friday's proposal did not pass without extensive debate among faculty over the implications of such a regulation.
"There was specific concern over the restriction of rights of those in the community to associate with each other," Academic Affairs Committee member Larry Ventis said. "We still want to preserve good interaction with students."
William & Mary Physics Professor Keith Griffioen praised the decision, saying it would help by "clearing the table and providing more freedom for normal student-faculty relationships"
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