UO classrooms are spaces of teaching and learning for our faculty and students. Only enrolled students and invited guests are permitted to attend. Students are expected to engage in a way that supports a respectful and productive learning environment. 

The student conduct code prohibits “Engaging in behavior that could reasonably be foreseen to cause … the disruption of, obstruction of, or interference with the process of instruction… [or] an environment conducive to learning.” 

Step 1: Address the behavior calmly. If a student is being disruptive (e.g., speaking over others or interrupting so that the class cannot progress):

• Focus on the behavior—not the individual’s viewpoint.
• Ask them to stop and re-invite them into the work of the class.
• If the class has a policy statement or has established an agreement for the respectful conduct of class, cite it.
• Example language:
  • "I see that this is important to you, but I need to ask you to stop speaking over me—our class plan for today is to discuss the assigned reading and we have agreed as part of our class guidelines that we won’t interrupt one another and that we’ll 'step up and step back' to allow for many people to contribute. Can we address your concerns after class and return to the work of the day?" 

Step 2: If disruption continues, you have several options:

• Pause or end the class. For example:
  • "Our activities today were important, and this behavior is keeping us from them. I am ending the live part of our class today but will be sending out an Announcement in Canvas with further instructions, and we will meet as usual next class."
• Ask the student(s) to leave the classroom. For example:
  • "I need to ask you to leave for the rest of class today, and I’ll be in touch before the next class meeting." 

Step 3: Seek support if needed. 

• During class, if a student refuses to leave or the situation escalates, contact UOPD at 541-346-2919. Officers are trained to de-escalate and support classroom safety.
• After class:
  • Report the incident using the Reporting Student Misconduct form.
  • You can also report general concerns about a student’s behavior, even if it’s not a conduct violation.
  • Contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 541-346-3216 for consultation or support.

Note: Permanent removal from a class is only possible in extreme cases, such as credible threats of violence.  

The UO “encourages and supports open, vigorous, and challenging debate on all issues of interest to the community” and sees free speech as “central to the academic mission” and “the central tenet of a free and democratic society” (see UO Academic Freedom, Free Speech, and Freedom of Inquiry Policy). Engaging with varied viewpoints is essential to learning. Because doing so productively is a skill that needs support and practice, we encourage using strategies which: 

• Help students set and navigate discussion norms.
• Provide opportunities for individual, asynchronous reflection and individual choice.  
• Establish common ground for a class discussion. 

Setting and navigating discussion norms: Let your students know the type of discussion you value and hope to see in your class, and why (this could be included as a syllabus statement or shared in class). Consider drafting discussion agreements (or “discussion guidelines”) with your class, and use them consistently. Collectively agreeing about how you’ll engage with each other provides transparent guidance, accountability, and creates a container for conversations that may feel difficult. Read a brief description of how to set up group agreements on UC Berkeley’s Creating Community Agreements page, and examples of agreements on the Sheridan Teaching and Learning Center’s Sample Guidelines.  

Providing opportunities for individual, asynchronous reflection and individual choice, which can increase engagement and can redirect, rather than block, certain kinds of dissonance or resistance. For example, you might: 

• Assign readings offering multiple perspectives on a topic and ask students to engage with the readings towards a specific learning goal (for example, to find overlaps and divergences in perspectives, rather than being asked to speak from personal perspective or to judge which perspective is “correct.”)
• Create assignments that value individual reflection and expression as part of the learning process, such as brief journaling exercises (graded on completion.)
• Offer choice in assignment topics so students can pursue their own interests. 

Establishing a common frame for a class discussion by   

• Making the “why” clear by articulating the specific learning goal(s) for the discussion (for example, “the purpose of this discussion is to test this theoretical construct against these three examples”)
• Providing specific artifacts, data, or questions for the group to focus their discussion in or tie it directly to.  

For more resources on planning for potentially challenging discussions, go to our Teaching in Turbulent Times Resource Guide, Designing Discussions for Universal Participation,  and Teaching in Turbulent Times toolkit.  

It may make sense to foreground from day one a core learning objective around developing the capacity to listen, write, and speak as a [practitioner, social scientist, counselor, teacher, etc.] and to link assessments and grading to these skills. This will mean being explicit about the rhetorical moves that matter in expert communication (say, inclusive word choice, protocols around mindful listening, standards for use of evidence to back up claims).  

Expert conventions can be hard to learn and harder still to intuit if they aren’t named. Low-stakes metacognitive exercises that help students reflect on their own learning or the dissonances of shifting in and out of different discourses might be powerful activities as students work toward these goals. In addition, some instructors bring in, rather than waiting for individual students to voice, readily available public arguments on a key topic—including misconceptions—and then demonstrate how disciplinary skills and methods can complicate or show the limitations of these arguments. 

This question considers a range of student behaviors towards instructors that are sometimes characterized as "academic contrapower harassment" and that are “uncivil, rude, or disrespectful; challenge a professor’s authority; use bullying, threats, or intimidation; are hostile or aggressive; or involve racial/ethnic or sexual harassment’" (May, A., & Tenzek, K. E. (2017).  

If you’re experiencing harassment, threats, or discriminatory behaviors from students, know you are not alone. You can consult with and report behaviors to either of these units: 

• The Office of the Dean of Students, through their Reporting Student Misconduct form, or by phone at 541-346-3216
• The Office of Investigations and Civil Rights Compliance, which encourages reporting discrimination, harassment, and retaliation (as defined under the university’s Prohibited Discrimination and Retaliation Policy, including allegations of bias based on ancestry, religion, national origin, race, and color, as well as sex and gender-based discrimination, harassment, violence, and stalking)

If you're experiencing any of these behaviors in your classes—including behaviors that might not be clearly counter to UO’s conduct code, but which still undermine your teaching—contact the Teaching Engagement Program (tep@uoregon.edu or 541-346-2177). We can think with you about pedagogical moves that may mitigate these behaviors, strategize with you about whether and how to address the behavior directly if you wish to, and connect you with other campus resources. 

Lastly, UO has done major work to overhaul its teaching evaluation system and to protect against this kind of undermining impacting faculty review. Student Experience Surveys, a primarily qualitative data source about teaching, is never meant to be a stand-alone measure of teaching quality. Additionally, if an instructor encounters student comments in the end-of term SES that are discriminatory, obscene, or demeaning, these comments can be flagged for redaction. 

No student has a right to record what happens in your classroom without your permission (with the exception of students who have AEC accommodations for technology-assisted notetaking). Do note, however, that students may have good reasons for wanting to record parts of class (learning differences, working in a nonnative language). 

You might want to establish a syllabus policy statement on this matter. One example: 

"The use of technologies for audio and video recording of lectures and other classroom activities is prohibited without explicit permission from the instructor and other students, or without the relevant AEC accommodation. Please contact me immediately if there is an important rationale for your personal use (for studying and the completion of class assignments) of recorded material." 

If you are concerned about a student and this is a non-emergency, the Office of the Dean of Students (DoS) encourages you to: 

• Fill out the Community Care and Support form for concerns related to a student’s physical and mental well-being, and/or
• Fill out the UO Advising Faculty and Staff Referral Outreach Form  for concerns about student engagement and participation, including non-attendance, non-engagement, unresponsive to communication, sudden drop in performance, or recommendation that the student drop the class.