601.06: Fraternization

Enterprise State Community College is committed to providing its students with an to educational environment that nurtures learning and personal growth. In furtherance of this goal, the College encourages its faculty and staff to establish and maintain warm and caring relationships with students. However, relationships between faculty or staff members and students inherently involve disproportionate power and influence on one side, making the relationships susceptible to abuse, either conscious or unconscious. For this reason, the College prohibits its employees from improper fraternization with students.

Improper fraternization with students involves any conduct that could lead to an unprofessional relationship or create the impression that such a relationship exists. Examples of such conduct include, but are not limited to:

• Engaging in any romantic or sexual relationships with students, including dating, flirting, sexual contact, inappropriate physical displays of affection, or sexually suggestive comments between employees and students;
• Fostering, encouraging, or participating in inappropriate emotionally or socially intimate relationships with students that could reasonably cause a student to view the employee as more than an instructor, administrator, or advisor;
• Initiating or continuing communications with students for reasons unrelated to any educational, professional, or other appropriate purpose, including communications through oral or written messages, telephone calls, electronic means such as texting, instant messaging, email, chat rooms, Facebook, or other social networking sites, or through webcams, or photographs;
• Socializing with or entertaining students outside of class time for reasons unrelated to any educational, professional, or other appropriate purpose;
• Providing alcohol or drugs (either prescription or illegal) to students (regardless of student age) or partaking in the use of such substances with students.

This policy applies regardless of whether the employee or student initiates the behavior, whether the relationship is consensual, or whether the student has parental permission.

All reasonable allegations or complaints of fraternization between students and employees will be investigated. In the event that improper fraternization is reported and confirmed, the College employee is subject to disciplinary action in accordance with the College's Progressive Discipline Policy and Alabama's Students First Act.

Certain exceptions will exist to this policy, including circumstances in which the spouse or partner of a college employee becomes student at the College. This fraternization policy does not apply in such circumstances. The supervising dean, or the College president in absence of a supervising dean, in consultation with the Director of Human Resources, will determine whether an exceptional circumstance applies.