Student Communication Policy and Standards of Engagement

 

1. After-Hours Contact

Faculty and staff maintain standard university working hours and designated office hours to support students effectively.

  • Standard Operating Hours: Official university business hours are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM MST, Monday through Friday.

  • Response Expectations: Students must adhere to standard working hours and office hours. Faculty and staff are not expected to monitor or respond to emails and phone calls outside of these hours.

  • Standard Response Timeline: Personnel require at least 24 business hours to review and respond to inquiries. For example, an email sent at 4:00 PM MST on a Tuesday may not receive a response until 4:00 PM MST on Wednesday.

  • Definition of Urgent Inquiries: Urgent inquiries are strictly limited to critical situations impacting immediate safety, health, institutional status, or campus access. This includes active safety hazards, severe medical crises (such as sudden hospitalization), imminent enrollment loss requiring same-day resolution, or system-wide technical failures locking a student out of a mandatory exam platform during an active testing window.

  • Definition of Non-Urgent Inquiries: Inquiries regarding late homework, assignment clarifications, grading timelines, troubleshooting file uploads, and general coursework are strictly classified as non-urgent. These matters do not justify bypassing standard timelines or operations and will be answered strictly within the standard 24-business-hour window.

  • Resolution: Non-urgent communications sent after hours or over weekends will be logged at the start of the next business day, initiating the 24-business-hour response window.

2. Email Etiquette 

To facilitate clear, professional, and efficient digital correspondence, all student emails addressed to university faculty and staff must adhere to the following standards:

  • Official Accounts: Students must send all emails from their official university-issued student email account to verify identity and comply with privacy regulations.

  • Subject Lines: Every email must include a clear, descriptive subject line 

  • Email Signature: student's full name, student ID number

  • Professional Tone: Emails must use a professional greeting (e.g., Dear Professor Smith, Hello Academic Advising Team) and a respectful, courteous tone. Profanity, demands, or aggressive language will result in an immediate pause in communication.

  • Single Threading: Students should avoid sending multiple consecutive emails for the same issue. All relevant information, files, and questions should be consolidated into a single, cohesive message to facilitate a prompt response.

3. Scheduled Appointments and Phone Communications

To ensure every student receives dedicated and focused attention, administrative and academic consultations should be scheduled in advance.

  • Appointment Protocols: Students are expected to use official scheduling portals or email to secure formal appointments for complex inquiries.

  • Repeated Calling Prohibition: Repeated calls to departmental phone lines to bypass the formal scheduling process are strictly prohibited.

  • Voicemail Protocol: If a phone call is not answered, the student must leave a single, detailed voicemail or send a follow-up email. Repeatedly calling back when a call is routed to voicemail disrupts frontline operations and will be flagged as non-compliant behavior.

4. Institutional Hopping

The university operates under a structured network of specialized departments. Inquiries must be handled by the specific office responsible for that domain.

  • Single-Channel Resolution: Students must wait for a response from the appropriate department within the designated 24-business-hour window before escalating an issue.

  • Bypassing Procedures: Contacting multiple departments or administrative offices simultaneously to demand immediate resolution—commonly referred to as "institutional hopping"—is prohibited.

  • Impact Assessment: This behavior consumes an excessive amount of administrative time, delays service to other students, and disrupts cross-campus operations. Inquiries circulated to multiple offices concurrently will be centralized, and responses will be paused until a single point of contact is established.

 

Policy Non-Compliance

Failure to adhere to these communication standards disrupts daily departmental operations and constitutes a misuse of university channels. If a student engages in unreasonable after-hours contact, repeated calling, or institutional hopping, the university will take the following progressive steps:

  1. Official Warning: The student will receive a written reminder of the communication policy from the department chair or instructor.

  2. Communication Restriction: The student may be restricted to a single point of contact or required to communicate exclusively via email.

  3. Disciplinary Referral: Persistent non-compliance will be referred to the Dean of Students Office for review under the student code of conduct regarding disruptive behavior.