Title

Student Complaint Policy

Ashland University recognizes the value of information provided by students, employees and others in assessing the university’s performance. The Student Complaint Policy serves to address significant violations of university standards, policies and procedures. This Policy also establishes the structure of and assigns responsibility for the management and tracking of complaints made by students in order to promote the timely and fair resolution of issues. Information gathered through the tracking of student complaints will be used in continuous improvement efforts related to student services and student satisfaction.

This Policy applies to all students enrolled at Ashland University at the time that the complaint is filed in accordance with the Policy. This Policy also applies to all former students of Ashland University (as defined in the Glossary) who wish to make a complaint about a matter which falls within the responsibility or control of the university.

The Ashland University Student Complaint Policy is available to students who wish to resolve a concern or concerns regarding services affecting their role as students and must be based on a claimed violation of a rule, policy or established practice of the university. This Policy is also available for use by students who wish to resolve a concern or concerns regarding a process or person of the university community not covered by existing policies (such as grade appeals and academic grievance procedures).

The objective of this Policy is to resolve concerns as quickly and efficiently as possible at the level closest to the student. This Policy provides two avenues for pursuing a complaint: an Informal Resolution Procedure and a Formal Resolution Procedure. Students may utilize one or both procedures.

The Office of Institutional Effectiveness shall submit a summary of formal student complaints to the Executive Leadership Team on a quarterly basis. Each report shall contain the following information:

• The total number of complaints received during that quarter.
• The nature of complaints received per generic category.
• A summary record of each complaint received and the action(s) taken to resolve it, if any.
• The total number of appeals and percentage of appeals which were either upheld or overturned.

The Office of Institutional Effectiveness shall submit an analysis of student complaint trends to the Executive Leadership Team on an annual basis (to be filed with the summary described above). This analysis must include steps taken and/or recommended courses of action to address such trends.