Ombuds Offer Guidance for Faculty on Procedural Fairness

Three Ombuds are the authors of an article in Inside Higher Education: "Are Faculty Members Fair?" The trio, Heather McGhee Peggs, Julie Boncompain, and Brent Epperson have all worked as University Ombuds. Drawing on the "fairness triangle," they recommend five things that faculty members can do to enhance procedural fairness in their interactions with graduate students: 

1. Make sure discussions and information-sharing are not one-sided. 
2. Help everyone to be on the same page about ... the discussion. 
3. Be open-minded.
4. Provide clear and understandable reasons for any decisions or actions. 
5. Pay attention to relevant information, take specific circumstances into consideration, and have an understanding of the context.

Peggs is the former Manager of the Graduate Conflict Resolution Centre at the University of Toronto and published her first book, Supervising Conflict: A Guide for Faculty, last year. Boncompain is currently the Protector of Rights (Ombudsman) at Polytechnique Montréal and the Ombuds for Mila in Montreal. Epperson is an Assistant Professor of Conflict Studies at Saint Paul University and a part-time Ombuds at the University of Luxembourg. All three will be speaking at the Centre for Informal Dispute Resolution's Ombuds conference in Ottawa next week and they are partners in an Ombuds consulting company. (Inside Higher Education.)

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