Bilkent University - Office of Legal Advisor

BİLKENT UNIVERSITY
STUDENT CODE OF DISCIPLINE

PART ONE
General Provisions

Aims

Article 1- The Bilkent University Student Code of Discipline has been drawn up to state the penalties to be administered to those students who have failed to perform the duties assigned to them by laws, rules, regulations and directives, both within and outside the university or to those students who have disobeyed rules or have carried out prohibited activities, or acted in a manner incompatible with the dignity and self-respect a student is expected to display; The Bilkent University Student Code of Discipline also names the officials and committees authorized to launch disciplinary investigations and explains the procedures to be followed in imposing disciplinary penalties, and in making appeals against them.

Article 2- This code has been drawn up in comformity with Article 54 of Law No. 2547, Yüksek Öğretim Kanunu (Turkish Higher Education Act), and Article 19 of the Vakıf Yüksek Öğretim Kurumları Yönetmeliği (Rules and Regulations Relating to Higher Education Foundations).

Scope

Article 3- This Code covers all students attending undergraduate, and graduate programmes as well as the School of English.

PART TWO
Disciplinary Penalties and Offences

Disciplinary Penalties

Article 4- Disciplinary penalties are as follows

a) Caution,
b) Censure,
c) Suspension from the University for periods of from one week to one month,
d) Suspension from the University for one or two semesters, and
e) Expulsion from the University

A student who has been expelled from the University is banned from entering all University premises.

Bilkent University will send the students concerned written notifications relating to disciplinary penalties.

Caution

Article 5-
Actions and circumstances entailing a caution are as follows:

a) Acting in a manner incompatible with the dignity every student is expected to display,

b) Treating others in a rude and disrespectful manner; failing to keep one’s immediate surroundings clean, and causing excessive noise,

c) Failing to provide prompt answers to any question put by the authorities, without a valid excuse,

d) Using equipment provided for academics purposes, such as musical instruments, without showing the necessary care and attention,

e) Acting in a distruptive manner at meetings, and ceremonies or cultural and artistic events.

Censure

Article 6-
Actions and circumstances entailing censure are as follows:

a) Behaving in a manner that might damage the sense of respect and confidence every student is expected to inspire in others,

b) Writing things, or making or pasting signs and symbols on walls, doors, and items of university furniture; causing damage to such items or other educational materials and equipment,

c) Failing to provide information demanded by the authorities, or giving them insufficient or false information,

d) Posting notices in places other than those designated by the authorities,

e) Causing disorder in classes, seminars, lectures, laboratories and workshops, and during musical practices; or attending such gatherings and activities in an intoxicated condition,

f) Absenting oneself from the classes, rehearsals, and concerts of one’s artistic group without stating a valid excuse or obtaining permission for non-attendance,

g) Appearing in the classrooms, laboratories, workshops and corridors of the University in a mode of dress and appearance unacceptable by modern standards,

h) Receiving a ticket by the University Traffic Committee for violating “ The Campus Traffic Code” or “Karayolları Trafik Kanunu” (The Highway Code).

Suspension For Periods of From One Week to One Month

Article 7-
Actions and circumstances entailing suspension from the University for periods of from one week to one month are as follows:

a) Restricting, in any manner, either directly or indirectly, others’ liberties of learning and teaching, or behaving in a manner disruptive to the peaceful working of the University,

b) Causing disorder at meetings, ceremonies, and dramatic or musical performances,

c) Engaging in political activities or handing out political manifestoes, or putting up political posters and placards within the University,

d) Obstructing the standard conduct of disciplinary investigations,

e) Allowing another person to use any document issued by the University and providing the holder with special rights or using such a document belonging to another person,

f) Writing morally offensive words or making or pasting indecent signs and figures on walls, doors, or items of University furniture, or damaging such items,

g) Tearing, defacing, or altering notices posted by the authorities,

h) Failing to treat administrators and academic staff with the decency and respect expected of every student,

i) Using musical instruments and other educational materials and equipment with a habitual lack of due care and attention, and thus causing excessive wear and severe damage to them,

j) Plagiarizing any part of another’s words, thoughts, ideas, inventions, etc. for use in any assignment, project, report and similar work.

k) Being found guilty by the University Traffic Committee of jeopardizing safety of life and property by violating “the Campus Traffic Code” or “The Highway Code”.

Suspension For One or Two Semesters

Article 8-
Actions and circumstances entailing suspension from the University for one or two semesters are as follows:

a) Threatening or insulting administrators, academic staff and other officials,

b) Speaking about administrators, academic staff and other officials in a hostile manner, or issuing printed matter of a hostile nature about these persons or inciting fellow students to hostility against them, or atempting any such similar actions,

c) Staging, for reasons other than political or ideological, boycotts, obstructions, and sit-ins, or upsetting the normal routine of work at the University or provoking any such similar actions,

d) Carrying out activities which might cause polarization due to differences of language, race, colour, religion or religious sect,

e)Assaulting University personnel or fellow students,

f) Writing or making signs and symbols on walls, doors, or any item of University furniture, to communicate an ideological or political message, or causing damage to items of University property,

g) Committing theft,

h) Drinking alcoholic beverages within the University,

i) Organizing unlicensed indoor or outdoor meetings within the University, or attending such meetings, or making statements and attending meetings and ceremonies, falsely assuming the right to do so under the guise of students’ representative,

j) Entering places within the University to which access is denied or causing damage and destruction in such places,

k) Keeping, making copies of, or handing out any kind of publication banned in institutions of higher education,

l) Cheating, allowing cheating, or attempting to cheat on any examination.

m) Getting anyone else to prepare any part, or the whole, of one’s homework, project, report, etc., or preparing any part, or the whole, of someone else’s homework, project, report etc. or using and passing off as one’s own, another’s work in the original or in any altered form, or plagiarizing someone else’s thoughts, views, inventions, words, etc. for use in one’s dissertation.

Expulsion From The University

Article 9-
Actions and circumstances entailing expulsion from the University are as follows:

a) Making University officials or fellow students leave buildings, classrooms, offices, laboratories or other premises by using force or violence, preventing officials from doing their work, or forcing fellow students to join in any such illegitimate activity,

b) Disturbing the general peace or the working environment for ideological and political motives, taking part in boycotts, sit-ins, obstructions, and University personnel’s work-to-rules, or provoking any such action,

c) Keeping, making copies of, or handing out any political and ideological manifestoes, posters, placards, tapes, etc. within the University, writing or representing with symbols or pictures political and ideological messages on walls, doors and items of furniture; or engaging in oral and written ideological propaganda,

d) Inducing by threats some individual or group to organize an illegitimate action or to take part in it; inducing them to make false statements or give false evidence, or to assume responsibility for such an illegitimate action,

e) Being a member of an illegal organisation, or acting in the name of or providing assistance to an illegal organization,

f) Taking, carrying, keeping or dealing in drugs,

g) Having suffered punishment for committing a crime against the body of the state,

h) Violating Act. No. 6316, “Ateşli Silahlar ve Bıçaklar ile Diğer Aletler Hakkında Kanun” (Act Relating to Firearms, Knives, and Other Similar Devices), by carrying or keeping firearms, projectiles, explosives, knives or any other devices specially made for offensive or defensive purposes, or being convicted of carrying or keeping any such devices,

i) Forming any overt or covert associations and organizations without obtaining the permission of the University,

j) Cheating in examinations by intimidating fellow students, preventing the authorities from sending the cheating students out of the classroom, getting somebody else to sit the examination in one’s stead or sitting an examination in some other person’s stead,

k) Obstructing, by force or intimidation, disciplinary proceedings,

l) Committing rape,

m) Hiding or harbouring persons that are wanted by the security forces,

n) Preventing fellow students from attending classes or examinations, by whatever means, or making them walk out of a class or inciting or compelling them to do so,

o) Inflicting torture or causing torture to be inflicted on some individual or group for any reason,

p) Obstructing the ceremonial hoisting of the national flag, or behaving in a deliberately disrespectful manner during such ceremonies.

Unforeseen Disciplinary Offences

Article 10- Students who commit disciplinary offences not specifically mentioned, but which are designed by University authorities to be comparable to those mentioned above in terms of their nature and gravity, incur corresponding disciplinary penalties.

Collectively Committed Disciplinary Offerences

Article 11- When individual offenders remain unidentified in a collectively committed disciplinary offence, each member of the group is punished separately.

Conditions Aggravating or Alleviating Disciplinary Penalties

Article 12- The recurrence of an action or circumstance previously penalized entails a penalty of one degree higher severity. Students that have suffered the same disciplinary penalties for different offences incur a penalty of one degree higher severity when they face the same penalty for the third time.

Collectively committed offences or offences committed jointly with students from other institutions of higher education entail a penalty of one degree higher severity.

Article 13- Evidence of provocation or absence of premeditation may be grounds for alleviating the punishment; in such cases a penalty of one degree lower severity may be imposed at the discretion of University authorities.

Compensation

Article 14- When any damage to University property becomes an established fact, the offender must also pay compensation.

PART THREE
Disciplinary Investigations

Authorized Officials

Article 15- Officials authorized to launch investigations are as follows:a) The incidents involving offences that are collectively committed or are of a recurrent nature, and/or are committed in any commonly used indoor or outdoor place, the Rector,

b) In cases where the disciplinary offence has been committed by a faculty student, the Dean of that faculty,

c) In cases where the disciplinary offence has been committed by a student from an Institute, the The Director of that Institute,

d) In cases where the disciplinary offence has been committed by a student from one of the Schools, the Director of that School.

Except for offences that might entail “expulsion from the University,” offences committed by students of the School of English Language are investigated by the Director of that School.

Officials authorized to launch investigations may choose to conduct them personally or they may appoint an investigator/investigators.

In collectively committed and recurring offences, an investigation committee is set up under the chairmanship or the Rector or a deputy Rector appointed by the Rector; this committee comprises members of the faculty, institute or school concerned, whose number is determined according to the scope and nature of the incidents under investigation. The committee draws up a report, to be submitted to the Rector, on the causes of the incidents and the measures to be taken for the prevention of their recurrence.

When the committee members conclude that certain students are guilty of the offences investigated, they propose to the authorized official the imposition of a caution, censure or rustication from the University for periods of from one week to one month, or the imposition or rustication for one or two semesters, to the University Disciplinary Committee.

Investigation Periods

Article 16-
A disciplinary investigation must be launched on the first working day after the offence has been reported. If an investigator has been appointed, he/she is promptly informed of the appointment. The investigation must be concluded within a maximum of 15 days from the official approval of the investigation.

If the investigation is not concluded within the allotted time, the investigator may ask for an extension stating his/her reasons for it. The extension will be granted only with the approval of the investigating official.

Conduct of the Investigation

Article 17-
The investigator hears the witnesses, collects facts and consults experts; he/she is also entitled to do so by proxy, where necessary. A record of the proceedings must be drawn up at each stage and it should include the following information: the time, place and nature of the investigation, the identity of those present, and the questios put and answers given if an affidavit is made. The record thus drawn up is then signed by the investigator, the secretary, the party who made the affidavit, those that were present during the fact-finding process, and those that provided certain documents. In the instructions for investigation by proxy, the witness’s identity and address, and other informative details are clearly stated . The witness is put under an oath in the required manner, and the form of the oath administered to him/her is also recorded.
The personnel of the University are obliged to provide promptly all the information, records, documents, and assistance that the investigator may require.

Defence

Article 18-
a) A student who is the subject of a disciplinary investigation is informed, in writing, of the nature of the offence imputed to him at least three days prior to the date on which he is required to present his defence. In the letter sent to him/her, the student is instructed to appear to conduct his/her defence at the date, time, and place specified. When such notification is impossible, notices are put up in certain places within the University to inform the student that he/she should contact the investigator to present his/her defence.

b) In the summons sent to the student, it is made clear that if he/she ignores the summons without a valid excuse, or fails to inform the authorities of his/her excuse in time, he/she will be deemed to have waived his/her right to defence and that a decision will be made about him/her on the basis of other evidence.

c) a) If the student provides a valid excuse for his/her failure to appear, or proves that he/she was prevented from appearing by conditions beyond his/her control, he/she is allowed a reasonable period of grace in which he/she is required to send in his/her defence in writing.

d) Articles 32 and 34 of this Code are to be observed in all forms of notification.

e) e. The conduct of the investigation should allow the student to use his/her right to defence fully. However, this right will not be abused by the student by making it a pretext to delay the conclusion of the investigation.

Investigation Report

Article 19-
A report is drawn up at the conclusion of the investigation. The report specifies the dates on which approval was given for the investigation, and on which the investigation was launched; it also states the identity of the student who is the subject of the investigation, the nature of the offences committed, and the different stages of the investigative process. It also summarizes the student’s defence. In the report, each item of offence is individually considered, the evidence obtained is carefully assessed to determine whether or not the offence was actually committed and an appropriate penalty is proposed. The originals and copies of existing documents are enclosed with the report and are submitted to the authorized official in a file.

Possible Measures to be Taken During Investigation

Article 20-
If he/she deems it necessary, the investigator may ask the authorities to ban the suspect from entering University premises. The decision of the authorities then becomes effective. The student’s transfer to another school or faculty within the University or to another institution of higher education or his/her leaving the University, for whatever reason, after he/she has committed the offence, will not hinder the launching or the conducting of an investigation nor the taking of appropriate decisions.

Concurrent Conduct of Penal and Disciplinary Proceedings

Article 21-
The launch of penal proceedings involving the same student and incident will not delay the launch of disciplinary proceedings. A disciplinary penalty can be imposed whether or not the suspect in convicted of the same offence under the penal code.

Conclusion of the Disciplinary Investigation

Article 22-
a) The report and file submitted by the investigator are examined by the Dean of the Faculty or the Director of the Institute or School. They may conclude the investigation personally or they may send the said report and file promptly to the Disciplinary Committee, which should meet within a maximum of three days to examine them.

b) The said Dean, Director or Disciplinary Committee examining the file may ask the same investigator or one of the members of the Disciplinary Committee to correct any defects which may be found in the investigative process.

Officials and Bodies Authorized to Impose Disciplinary Penalties

Article 23-
The Dean of the Faculty or the Director of an Institute or School is authorized to impose a caution, censure and rustication from the University for periods of from one week to one month.

Rustication for one or two semesters or expulsion from the University is imposed by the Disciplinary Committees.

The Executive Committees of Faculties, Institutes or Schools also serve as Disciplinary Committees.

Meetings and Organization of the Disciplinary Committee

Article 24-
The Disciplinary Committee convenes upon the request of the chairperson at the specified time, date, and place. The Chairperson arranges for the preparation of the agenda, the notification of those concerned, and ensures the smooth running of the Committee’s activities. The quorum required at meetings is the majority of the Committee’s membership.

The Chairperson appoints a member to act as Secretary. The Secretary completes his/her examination of the file handed to him/her within a maximum of two days, and submits his/her report to the chairperson.

The Secretary’s views are heard and discussed by the members of the Committee. If the members deem it necessary, they may also hear the views of the investigator. When the members of the Disciplinary Committee feel that the matter in hand has been thoroughly considered and discussed, a vote is taken. The decision thus reached is announced by the Chairperson.

Each member of the Disciplinary Committee must vote in favour or against a motion. Abstention is not allowed. The vote will be decided by a simple majority.

When there is an equal number of votes in favor and against, the Chairperson uses the casting vote. The members ot the Disciplinary Committee confirm their decision by signing the minutes of the meeting.

Decision Periods

Article 25-
The official or Disciplinary Committee authorized to administer penalties is free to agree or disagree with the penalty proposed in the investigation report; they can decide on a lighter or heavier penalty provided that they state their reasons for doing so.

Period of Decision

Article 26-
The officials authorized to administer disciplinary penalties must decide on the imposition of a caution, censure or rustication from the University for periods of from one week to one month within five days of the completion of the investigation.

In offences entailing other forms of disciplinary penalty the file is promptly handed to the Disciplinary Committee which must come to a decision within a maximum of ten days from the date of their receiving the file.

PART FOUR
Enforcement of Disciplinary Penalties and the Right to Appeal

Notification of Penalties

Article 27- The penalty imposed at the end of the investigation is announced by the rector or the authorized official in writing, to the following:

a) The student concerned,
b) The student’s parents, or in the event of their absence, the person named by the student as next of kin,
c) Public or private sector organizations or individuals offering a scholarship or grant to the penalized student,
d) The Higher Education Authority,
e) In cases involving expulsion from the University, in addition to those mentioned above:

1.All other institutions of higher education,
2.The security forces,
3.Conscription offices,
4.The Higher Education Authority (OYSM Directorate). Where necessary, the penalties imposed may be posted in universities and related organizations.

Enforcement Date

Article 28-
Unless the date of their enforcement is specified in the decisions taken by the authorized officials or committees, disciplinary penalties take effect from the date of their imposition.

Appeal and Period of Appeal to an Administrative Court

Article 29-
No appeal can be made to a higher administrative authority against the imposition of a caution, censure and rustication from the University for periods of from one week to one month or for one or two semesters. It is possible to appeal all the penalties mentioned in this Code to an administrative court.

An appeal may be lodged with the University Executive Committee against expulsion from the University within fifteen days of its announcement.

In the event of such an appeal, the University Executive Committee discusses the case and confirms or rejects the decision relating to the student’s expulsion.

In the event of a rejection, the Committee or authorized official responsible for the imposition of the penalty considers the reasons stated for its rejection and makes a decision regarding the appeal.

If the University Executive Committee decides against the student he/she can appeal to an administrative court.

Time Limits

Article 30-
Disciplinary penalties cannot be imposed if the launch of a disciplinary investigation exceeds the time limits stated below:

a) In cases entailing a caution, censure or rusticaton for periods of from one week to one month, one month from the date on which the authorities are informed of the offence,

b) In cases entailing rustication for one or two semesters, six months from the date on which the authorities are informed of the ofence.

Disciplinary penalties cannot be enforced unless they are imposed within a maximum of two years from the date on which the offence was committed. However, in cases where the authorities feel that they need to wait until a court sentence is given, the time limit begins from the date on which the court sentence is confirmed. The need to wait is recorded in a provisional decision taken by the disciplinary authorities.

Rescinding a Penalty

Article 31-
If the student who has suffered a disciplinary penalty other than expulsion from the University is observed to have been flawless in his/her conduct for a whole year he/she may have his/her penalty rescinded by the Rector upon the proposal of his/her Department Head or Dean. If the the Rector thinks it fit, the penalty imposed is rescinded and does not appear in any records given to the student.

PART FIVE
Miscellaneous Provisions

Article 32-
Actions and circumstances entailing expulsion from the University are as follows:

a)All notifications relating to the disciplinary investigation are made in writing and sent to the address given by the student at his/her registration or posted within the University.

b) Those students that have not informed the University authorities of any changes in their addresses, or have given them false or incomplete addresses at their registration will not be allowed to claim that they have not been notified, if a letter has been sent to them.

Submitting the Investigation File

Article 33-
The investigation files are submitted with a list of the records or documents enclosed. The list is signed by the party submitting them and the party receiving them.

Method of Communication

Article 34-
Letters to individuals are sent by registered mail. If a document is delivered by hand, the recipient signs a note which is kept in the file. The method of notification stated in Article 32 is to be observed in all cases; Act No: 7201, “Tebligat Kanunu” ( Act Relating to Official Communications), applies to other matters.