What UCF Teaches Its Conduct Board

Last reviewed November 3, 2026

UCF trains the students, faculty, and staff on its Student Conduct Board with written materials, one set for conduct cases and one for academic integrity cases. Those materials show what the people deciding a case are taught to look for: how to judge credibility, what to ask, and how to choose a sanction. Here is what they cover and what it can mean for a UCF student heading into the process.

Who the board is, and who advises it

A UCF formal hearing goes either to an administrative hearing officer (one faculty or staff member) or to a panel that is at least half students, with a faculty or staff member reading the script. Members are told to step aside if they know the student, and UCF-5.009 lets the student challenge a member’s impartiality, for good cause, before the hearing starts. That right only helps if it is used at the beginning.

The SCAI staff representative ties the process together. According to the training, that person meets the student at the preliminary conference, schedules the hearing, assembles the board’s file, and serves as the “Advisor for the Conduct Board Members.” UCF-5.009 sets it up the same way. The representative can explain the process, but they work for the office bringing the case.

The file the board reads first

Board members receive a folder in advance: notice letters and emails, the incident report, any police report, supporting documents from SCAI and from the student, a table of contents, the hearing script, a determination sheet, and a rationale sheet. They are told to read all of it, watch any video, note the timeline, and write their questions down beforehand.

So the student’s written submission is not a formality. It is part of what the board has already read when the hearing begins. Under UCF-5.009, the student can inspect all known information, inculpatory and exculpatory, at least five business days before the hearing, and the university can review what the student plans to use on the same schedule.

How the board is taught to judge credibility

The training gives members five factors:

• Inherent plausibility. Does the account make sense? “Think timelines.”
• Motive to falsify. Does the charged student have a reason to shade the truth?
• Corroboration. Is there a witness or document behind the account, and who is more trustworthy when two accounts conflict?
• Prior record. Not known to the board until the sanction discussion.
• Demeanor. Marked “CAUTION!”

Much of a hearing is decided on paper before anyone asks a question. Timelines, screenshots, syllabi, and witnesses who actually appear are the kinds of things the board is trained to weigh. The training lists police reports, body-camera footage, investigation reports, screenshots, emails, syllabi, and testing footage as the kinds of information that count, and describes secondhand hearsay (“heard through 5 people”) and character references as not enough on their own.

The questions the board is taught to ask

Members are coached on rapport questions (“How is your semester?”), open incident questions (“Walk me through the timeline of your evening”), closed questions tied to the documents (“The police report states… Is this correct?”), and reflection questions (“What did you learn from this experience?”). They are also shown “questions that need work,” leading questions such as “You stole the Emmy Award, didn’t you?”, and told to avoid them because “the student is not responsible until the preponderance of evidence proves otherwise.”

Open questions like “walk me through it” are often where an account becomes hard to follow, and loaded questions can still come up in a live hearing. How a student and their advisor handle both is part of preparing.

When a student accepts responsibility

The training says that when a student pleads responsible, members should “still ask about self, the incident, and the student’s plan moving forward and reflections,” because those answers supply “any mitigating, or aggravating factors.” Members then weigh purpose, intent, community impact, and whether the student “would benefit from time away.”

In other words, a student who admits the conduct is still at a hearing, and it is a hearing about the sanction. What led to the conduct, what has changed since, and what the student has already done about it all come into play.

The sanction scale from the inside

The training groups the disciplinary statuses in two tiers. Warning, probation, and deferred suspension keep the student enrolled, and only a warning leaves the student in good standing. Suspension, dismissal, and expulsion remove the student. For academic misconduct, the training reminds members that a Z designation goes on the transcript when the finding carries deferred suspension or higher, or on a second finding. The companion post, UCF’s conduct letters, decoded, explains what each status and the Z mean once a letter arrives.

The written rationale is built for the appeal

The last part of the training covers the written rationale. Members are told to “tell the story” for a director “or potential appellate officer” who has never seen the file, to cite page numbers, and to quote the student, the police report, and witnesses directly. What a student says at the hearing can end up quoted in the document the appellate officer reads.

Where this leaves a UCF student

The regulations are the starting point: UCF-5.009 for conduct cases and UCF-5.015 for academic misconduct. A few features of the process tend to matter early. The file can be inspected before the hearing. An informal resolution at UCF is final and cannot be appealed. UCF does not pause for a related criminal case. And UCF allows an advisor, advocate, or legal representative to fully participate, but will not reschedule around that person’s calendar.

The UCF page covers the regulations, deadlines, and the medical school’s separate process, and the conduct charges and hearings page explains how hearings work more generally.

This post describes UCF’s process in general terms. It is not legal advice, and every case turns on its own facts and the version of the rules in effect.