Disciplinary Policy

Effective: 2/15/2018

1. Incidents reported by staff members or users will be investigated and records collected (e.g. security video recordings, use logs, iLabs records, photos of the equipment, etc.)

2. The engineering manager (Ron Reger) will inform the user(s) and their major professor(s) and meet with the users involved to hear their side of the incident, gauge the level of severity, and determine if re-training is required.

3. After this initial meeting, the user(s) will be required to send an email (to the engineering manager) within 24 hours of the meeting including the following information:

1. A description of their actions

2. A description of the possible negative outcomes of their actions (e.g., damages to tools, injury to themselves, impact on other users)

3. A description of proper procedures in their own words

4. The engineering manager will then attach to that document his comments and summary of the issue in an email to the disciplinary committee.

1. The engineering manager will recommend whether the committee needs to take additional actions or if a warning is sufficient (typically for first time, minor offenses).

2. As a warning and to ensure proper procedures are followed in future, users may be restricted access (when staff members are present, 7 am - 5  pm Monday - Friday with no access on the weekends and evenings) to the BNC for 7 days and/or required to retrain on the tool or safety policies (if appropriate) even if further action by the disciplinary committee is not recommended.

5. The head of the disciplinary committee will review the information

1. If a warning is sufficient, the head of the disciplinary committee will contact the user(s) and the user(s)’s major professor(s) to document the warning and implement the restricted access and/or retraining requirement.

2. If additional action is recommended, the disciplinary committee will meet with the user(s) and their major professor(s) to discuss the incident and determine appropriate actions. Responses may vary depending on level of severity and the frequency of the actions. At the committee’s discretion, actions include:

1. Limited access (when staff members are present, 7 am - 5  pm Monday - Friday with no access on the weekends and evenings) to the lab for  anywhere between one week to one year, depending on severity of the case

2. Suspension from the labs for  anywhere between one week to one year, depending on severity of the case

3. Retraining on the tools or safety policies

4. Birck community service (e.g., cleaning the labs, organizing SDS, contribution to the Wiki, etc.)

6. After the major professor(s) have been apprised of the situation, the engineering manager in consultation with the staff engineer in charge of the equipment or labspace will send an email to the iLab user group to inform them of the incident and remind them of the importance of keeping good practices. The user’s identity will not be shared.