Continuing Education at James Madison University
Continuing education can be a boon to your professional career. You may be pursuing continuing education at James Madison University for any one or more of several very good reasons. Continuing education may be necessary to hold your current job. Continuing education may qualify you for a promotion, new responsibilities, and greater income. Continuing education may qualify you for an entirely new job with a new employer or even for a new career.
Whatever your good reasons for pursuing James Madison University continuing education, one thing is sure: you are not pursuing that education to leave a black mark on your academic and professional record. Your continuing education needs to be a service to your job and career, not a drag on it and detrimental to it. Yet continuing education can present such significant challenges that you could be facing misconduct or other disciplinary charges of one kind or another. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team to defend those charges. Keep your educational and professional record clean. Call 888.535.3686 or complete our contact form to tell us about your continuing education issues.
James Madison Continuing Education Opportunities
The School of Professional and Continuing Education at James Madison University provides rich opportunities to promote your job and career through supplemental education. James Madison's School of Professional and Continuing Education offers a Lifelong Learning Institute, preparation courses for the SAT, GMAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT, professional development courses, certificate courses, and even options to pursue a university degree. It even offers youth programs for college preparation. You can gain much in pursuing continuing education at James Madison University, as long as your pursuit does not result in stains on your academic and professional record.
James Madison Continuing Education Misconduct Charges
Continuing education may sound like an all-upside proposition, other than the time and cost of continuing education. But your one big potential downside is that you would suffer discipline in your program that could adversely affect your job, career, and other professional or vocational opportunities. You went to James Madison University to improve yourself, not to harm your reputation. Yet if the university pursues disciplinary charges against you and finds that you committed misconduct of one form or another, then your employer, professional licensing body, colleagues, friends, family, and other persons and organizations important to you may regard you as less worthy of support. In the worst case, you could even lose a professional license, job, and career. Don't let that happen. Our Student Defense Team can help you defend James Madison University's continuing education misconduct charges.
James Madison University CE Requirements
Continuing education doesn't mean a free pass to graduating with a certificate or other credential, certainly not at the rigorous James Madison University. You must generally put in the time and effort to complete your studies according to the university's general standards. James Madison University does not lower its standards for continuing education students. The university's General Handbook Information confirms that the university's Standards of Conduct apply to continuing education students just as much as to degree-seeking students. The university may treat you like any other student when the question comes to your behavioral or academic misconduct or failure to progress academically. Your continuing education application and enrollment required you to acknowledge and accept the university's general standards of conduct and disciplinary policies.
James Madison University CE Conduct Standards
James Madison University's Standards of Conduct and Policies, applicable not only to traditional students but also to you as a continuing education student, include the usual restrictions found at other colleges and universities. Those policies include behavioral prohibitions around alcohol, obscenity, pornography, drugs, weapons, gambling, harassment, sexual misconduct, crime, and similar campus issues. Those policies also include the James Madison University Honor Code prohibiting lying, cheating, plagiarism, research fraud, unauthorized collaboration, use of unauthorized materials, and similar academic misconduct. The School of Professional and Continuing Education will hold you to the university's usual high standards. Don't let that mean that you suffer discipline, suspension, and expulsion, and the attendant collateral consequences on your license, job, career, reputation, and relationships. Get our help.
James Madison University CE Student Discipline
James Madison University's Standards of Conduct and Policies and its Honor Code do more than state the school's aspirations for all students, including continuing education students. A university Accountability Board adjudicates disciplinary charges that a Case Administrator brings under the Standards of Conduct and Policies. Likewise, an Honor Council adjudicates disciplinary charges under the Honor Code. The university even imposes on all students a duty to report fellow students who commit serious wrongs. Both the Accountability Board for behavioral violations and the Honor Council for academic violations have the authority to impose sanctions right up to suspension or expulsion. If you get kicked out of the university's continuing education programs due to misconduct findings, those findings will go on your university record. They may also be reportable offenses for your professional licensing body and employer.
James Madison University CE Rigor
Students pursuing James Madison University professional or continuing education should expect their instructors to hold them to the same high and rigorous standards as traditional students in undergraduate and graduate degree programs. You may even share the same courses or instructors with those traditional students. Your assignments may be as long and demanding, and the examinations as arduous as assignments and examinations traditional students must complete. Continuing education often has a non-traditional schedule, whether weekends or evenings, to accommodate work schedules. But the other standards don't generally change. Don't expect equal flexibility in disciplinary standards.
James Madison University CE Challenges
In some ways, continuing education at James Madison University can be even more challenging for you than a traditional program. Continuing education students often have demanding jobs and careers that traditional students don't yet have. You must juggle continuing education with the responsibilities of your day job. Continuing education students also often have spouses, children, dependent or elderly parents, homes to maintain, mortgages to pay, and similar substantial responsibilities. Those responsibilities can naturally take priority over continuing education. Those responsibilities can also cause you to fall into school habits and practices you would never otherwise consider. If your responsibilities have overwhelmed you, and you have, as a consequence, engaged in some school practice that has gotten you into trouble with school officials, let our Student Defense Team help. You also may have much more on the line than a traditional student would have.
James Madison University Academic Progress
Continuing education at James Madison University can earn you a degree or certificate, depending on the program you have chosen. If your continuing education program leads to such a credential, then it will have satisfactory academic progress (SAP) requirements. James Madison University's SAP policy expressly refers, for instance, to teachers pursuing continuing education at the university in a licensure program. Federal loan regulations require SAP standards. But schools also generally adopt academic standards to ensure that students, alumni, employers, accreditors, and other constituents respect the degree or certificate credential. James Madison University's SAP policy, like many other schools, requires at least a 2.00 / 4.00 grade-point average, successful completion of at least two-thirds of credits attempted, and graduation within 150% of the usual timeframe for the credential. You could suffer probation, suspension, or dismissal if you do not meet your program's SAP requirements because of your other responsibilities.
James Madison University Academic Progress Appeals
Fortunately, James Madison University's satisfactory academic progress (SAP) policy permits relief if you complete a successful appeal, with all attendant documentation and explanation, based on your “extenuating circumstances.” Federal regulations list the death of a close family member or your own serious illness and disability as potential extenuating circumstances. But your appeal may prove other compelling circumstances such as changing job obligations, childcare, illness of a dependent, or similar circumstances. Let us help you make a strong SAP appeal, meeting the remediation, explanation, and documentation requirements.
James Madison University Academic Conduct Standards
As briefly indicated above, you must also conform to academic standards in your James Madison University continuing education. James Madison University's Honor Code lists no fewer than nineteen different grounds for academic discipline, including:
- using unauthorized materials or receiving unauthorized assistance during an examination or for any work done for academic credit;
- copying information from another student during an examination or knowingly permitting another student to copy your examination answers;
- taking an examination for another student or asking or permitting another student to take an examination for you;
- obtaining examination materials in advance of the examination or sharing or selling unauthorized copies of examinations or exam answers to other students;
- giving false or misleading information about an academic matter;
- submitting a commercially prepared assignment for academic credit as if completed by oneself;
- falsifying class attendance records for yourself or someone else, or having another person falsify attendance records for you, or giving false reasons for missing classes or failing to take an examination;
- falsifying course registration or grades for yourself or for someone else or making unauthorized changes in reported grades;
- falsifying scientific or other data submitted for academic credit;
- collaborating with other students on work submitted for academic credit, without authorization;
- plagiarism, defined as representing the information, ideas, or phrasing of others without proper acknowledgment or as if your own; or
- intentionally misusing computing facilities or library resources.
Academic misconduct findings can damage or destroy a professional career, especially when it involves deliberate dishonesty, like many of the above violations. Professional licensing boards and employers look askance at applicants whose academic record reflects poor character for honesty and integrity. You could lose a license, job, and career over academic misconduct findings in your James Madison University continuing education. Let us help defend such charges.
James Madison University Behavioral Standards
James Madison University's Standards of Conduct and Policies, referenced briefly above, threaten a different form of discipline for continuing education students. Continuing education students may be older and more mature than traditional students entering college right after high school. But older students can still face similar issues having to do with personal comportment, whether drunk driving charges, domestic violence allegations, or substance addictions, that university enrollment and activities might bring to light, resulting in disciplinary charges. James Madison University's standards address the following forms of behavioral misconduct:
- drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and alcohol consumption or distribution to minors on campus without authorization or in law violation;
- trespass, vandalism, and other unauthorized use or abuse of university grounds, buildings, and property;
- blocking fire escapes or other safety routes, hallways, streets, and buildings, possessing weapons or explosives, or other endangering behaviors;
- illegal drug possession, impairment, distribution, or sale on campus property;
- voyeurism, indecent exposure, pornography, stalking, sexual harassment, or sexual assault in violation of Title IX regulations;
- unauthorized electronic information access or other misuse of university computers; and
- smoking, vaping, or other tobacco use in violation of university policies, or providing tobacco products to minors in violation of state and local law.
James Madison University behavioral misconduct charges can carry sanctions right up to school dismissal. Behavioral misconduct findings and sanctions, like sanctions for academic misconduct, would appear on your school record. You may have to disclose such sanctions to your professional licensing board or employer. Let us help defend any such charges.
James Madison University Misconduct Procedures
James Madison University's accountability process provides you with protective procedures that we can help you invoke to defend disciplinary charges. Just because you face a charge does not mean that the school has concluded that you committed the offense. The university may simply expect you to provide your explanation and exonerating or mitigating evidence within its accountability process. We can help you invoke those procedures to your best effect and for your best possible outcome. If you have already lost all available hearings and appeals, we may still be able to negotiate alternative special relief through James Madison University's general counsel office.
Premier Defense for James Madison University CE Charges
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team has successfully defended hundreds of students, including continuing education students, against misconduct charges of all kinds. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form to tell us about your case and get the skilled and experienced representation you need for your best outcome.
