Staff-student relationships
Download the Good Practice Scheme recommendations on staff-student relationships [pdf / word]
Staff-student relationships carry with them an enormous potential for abusive or coercive behaviour, due to the inherent power difference. There’s a good introduction to these issues here.
Sample policies, reflections and other resources
Most universities in the UK strongly discourage these relationships and require that they be reported so that conflicts of interest can be avoided. Recently some have begun to go further, and forbid such relationships.
- Here is a good journalistic article about the concerns regarding these relationships.
- And here is David Archard’s philosophical paper on the problems for consent in such relationships.
- Here is UCL’s policy, which forbids such relationships, in certain circumstances (such as supervisory relationships).
- And here is an article arguing in favour of UCL’s policy.
