Continuing Education Value at the College of William & Mary
Continuing education at the premier academic institution, the College of William & Mary, can be a great way to improve your skills and credentials to get ahead. Continuing education, especially at a pillar of academics like William & Mary, can open doors to promotions in your current job or field or for a transition to a new job and field. Continuing education can also advance your leadership, volunteer, social, and other opportunities. You may also have long felt that you needed to continue and complete a program of education that circumstances unfortunately interrupted. But above all, continuing education opens your mind, heart, and horizons. You do yourself, your family, and your community well when you pursue continuing education at the College of William & Mary, as long as you abide by the school's rules and meet its academic and conduct standards.
College of William & Mary Continuing Education Opportunities
The College of William & Mary recognizes the great personal and community value of timely, inspiring, value-added continuing education offerings. The College of William & Mary's Osher Institute of Lifelong Learning has a robust catalog of continuing education opportunities. The College of William & Mary also offers a flexible track or FlexTrack program "for non-traditional students with significant time constraints outside of the classroom, an example being family commitments, full-time employment, etc." The College of William & Mary's Washington Center also offers abundant continuing education opportunities. The College of William & Mary also offers abundant pre-college, undergraduate, and graduate-level online courses to supplement its continuing education opportunities. As the online course information touts, "A personalized education is a big part of the William & Mary experience." The College of William & Mary has also committed itself to increasing its continuing education opportunities as part of a strategic planning initiative. Meet program requirements, and you'll have abundant College of William & Mary CE opportunities.
College of William & Mary CE Requirements
When you participate in flexible track, online, or in-person continuing education courses at the College of William & Mary, you must meet the school's standards and requirements. The College of William & Mary's Osher Institute of Lifelong Learning, for instance, requires all participants in its continuing education courses to sign a participation agreement to abide by its rules: "By signing below, I agree to abide by the policies, procedures, and protocols of Osher at W&M as provided here and in the Fall 2023 Course catalog during my participation in the Program, whether as a member, instructor, co-instructor, community volunteer, guest, or other associate." Enrollment in online or other continuing education courses to apply to a College of William & Mary undergraduate or graduate degree or certificate program likewise requires meeting all program standards. Let the Student Defense Team help you if you face College of William & Mary continuing education disciplinary charges for failing to meet your program's standards.
College of William & Mary Student Code of Conduct
The College of William & Mary, like other schools nationwide, maintains a Student Code of Conduct through which it regulates student behavior. The College's Student Code of Conduct seeks to "guide students toward the development of personal responsibility, respect for others, and mature behavior." The College of William & Mary also maintains an Honor Code regulating student academic behavior. The Honor Code requires students to "pledge on my honor not to lie, cheat, or steal, either in my academic or personal life," adding that "such acts violate the Honor Code and undermine the community of trust, of which we are all stewards." These codes together make College of William & Mary CE courses and programs a highly regulated environment, one in which you may inadvertently fall out of compliance and face disciplinary charges.
College of William & Mary Student Discipline
The College of William & Mary's Student Code of Conduct and Honor Code are not just aspirational statements. If, as a continuing education or online student, you violate one of the college's codes, you may face discipline up to suspension or expulsion. The College's Student Code of Conduct, for instance, states that "any student found to have committed or to have attempted to commit the following violations is subject to the sanctions/educational measures outlined in Section VII." The college's academic Honor Code prohibiting lying, cheating, and stealing likewise refers to the same Section VII sanctions for academic misconduct. Those Section VII sanctions expressly provide for anything up to and including suspension or dismissal. No one wants to suffer discipline as a continuing education student. Get our help when facing disciplinary charges.
College of William & Mary CE Special Challenges
Continuing education can sound like a breeze. It's not. Continuing education at the College of William & Mary is generally as hard as the school's regular college and university courses. Learning occurs only when the course pushes you beyond your comfort zone. That's why education is routinely difficult. If it's not pushing you, then you're not learning. Professors and instructors set the reading, writing, and examination requirements just beyond, or even significantly beyond, your comfort level to ensure that you learn from your investment in the course. As a College of William & Mary continuing education student, you must meet those same standards.
However, continuing education can be even harder than regular college and university courses. By definition, continuing education means education outside of the traditional structure. Your continuing education may be nights or weekends. It may be summer or in between terms. It may be well after your first educational program ended, at a time when you have a responsible job and significant family commitments that you did not have when you were first in college. You may not have the time or energy to devote to studies that you once did. You may have also fallen out of a college student's study habits and may have fallen behind in technology skills. Don't be surprised if you struggle in your continuing education at the College of William & Mary. Let our Student Defense Team help if your struggles result in unfortunate disciplinary charges.
College of William & Mary Satisfactory Academic Progress
Some College of William & Mary students take summer or other online and continuing education courses with the expectation of earning an undergraduate or graduate degree or program certificate. If your William & Mary CE course offers credit to a degree or certificate you are pursuing, then you must meet the college's satisfactory academic progress (SAP) policy. Schools like William & Mary that accept federal funding, including student loan proceeds, must enforce SAP policies. The College of William & Mary publishes its SAP policy, which it calls its "continuance policy," in its Student Code of Conduct. William & Mary generally requires a 2.00 / 4.00 cumulative grade point average. If you fall below that cumulative GPA, you'll face notice and probation and then dismissal if you do not improve your cumulative GPA.
William & Mary's FlexTrack program offers some leniency in your required cumulative GPA. But by forty-eight credits, even the FlexTrack program requires the same 2.00 GPA. William & Mary's continuance policies also require that you complete a certain number of credits within a certain period. You'll face probation and dismissal if you don't complete courses with passing grades within the minimum time. Fortunately, our Student Defense Team is available to help you with a College of William & Mary petition for academic reinstatement if you have already suffered academic probation, suspension, or dismissal.
College of William & Mary Academic Conduct Standards
Making the grade isn't your only continuing education challenge at the College of William & Mary. If students, instructors, or others believe that your studies violated the College's Honor Code in some way, you may face disciplinary charges. The College of William & Mary supplements its general Honor Code statement with elaborate definitions of lying, cheating, and other forms of academic misconduct. The definitions of academic misconduct include these examples:
- lying, defined as presenting false information while intending to deceive, can include presenting any false information to gain an advantage in curriculum, co-curricular, or employment matters, forging or falsifying any college document, or presenting any false statement or information during an Honor Code investigation;
- stealing, defined as taking another's property with the intent to deprive them temporarily or permanently of its use, can include taking a student's property, the university's property, or a university guest's property, whether by outright theft or by fraud or deception;
- cheating includes plagiarism, representing another's work as one's own, unauthorized assistance, unauthorized collaboration, use of unauthorized materials, dual submission of a single work for credit without permission, writing an exam beyond the allowed time, or deliberate failure to follow instructions on an exam or assignment with the intent to gain an undue advantage.
Academic misconduct findings can harm your reputation even if the College's Honor Council does not impose a crippling school sanction. You could lose references, recommendations, honors, awards, grants, scholarships, and employment or other opportunities. Our Student Defense Team is available to help you defend William & Mary's academic misconduct charges.
College of William & Mary Behavior Standards
The College of William & Mary isn't just concerned with student academic misconduct. The college may also charge misconduct for non-academic behaviors that threaten students or staff, disrupt classes or activities, or affect the college's reputation. The College of William & Mary's Student Code of Conduct lists these five categories of behaviors that may result in disciplinary sanctions up to dismissal:
- conduct affecting persons like physical violence, threats, threatening behavior, violation of others' rights, kidnapping or other restraint, sexual misconduct, harassment, hazing, classroom disruption, invasions of privacy through secret recording or other means, and violating the school's policy against firearms, other weapons, and explosives;
- conduct affecting property, damaging or defacing school property through acts of vandalism, interfering with fire alarms or other fire-prevention equipment, and theft, conversion, or embezzlement;
- conduct affecting the community trespassing, security breaches, violating the school's computer use policy, failing to obey a university directive, blocking streets, buildings, or pedestrian ways, hosting a guest who violates school policies, or interfering with the disciplinary system;
- alcohol and drug misconduct, including underage drinking, minor in possession of alcohol, public intoxication, driving under the influence, possession of unlawful drugs or drug paraphernalia, and distribution or manufacture of drugs unlawfully; and
- violations of law, including criminal charges and conviction.
College of William & Mary, behavioral misconduct charges can carry severe collateral consequences, even when not resulting in in-school suspension or expulsion. You could lose your job, professional license, trade certification, security clearance, or even your lawful immigration status, depending on the nature of your school disciplinary charge and sanction. Our Student Defense Team is available to help you respond to the College of William & Mary's behavioral misconduct charges.
College of William & Mary Misconduct Procedures
The College of William & Mary is a private institution, not subject in the same way as public institutions to the Constitution's due process clause. But the College of William & Mary, under its own policies and procedures, must generally afford you protective procedures before disciplining you for misconduct in your continuing education program. Both its Academic Regulations and Student Code of Conduct for behavioral misconduct charges provide for fair notice to you of the nature of the charges and a fair hearing. Our attorneys have the special skills and experiences necessary to help you navigate these academic and administrative procedures to their best effect.
Our attorneys can answer your disciplinary charges, notify school officials that we represent you on all charges, and ensure that you know the school's evidence against you. We can help you gather your own exonerating and mitigating evidence and present that evidence in early informal communications and, if necessary, at a formal hearing. We can also help you with negotiations for early voluntary resolution, appeals at later stages if necessary, and negotiations with school oversight officials if you have already lost your proceeding.
Premier Defense for College of William & Mary CE Charges
College of William & Mary continuing education disciplinary charges can seriously affect your education, job, career, and other rights and interests. The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team has helped hundreds of students nationwide defend and defeat misconduct charges. We are available at the College of William & Mary, no matter your program or the nature of the allegations against you. Call 888.535.3686 or chat with us.
