General Rules of Conduct

Title: General Rules of Conduct
Policy Owner: Office of Faculty & Staff Labor Relations
Applies to: Faculty, Staff
Campus Applicability:  Storrs and Regional Campuses
Effective Date: January 2004
For More Information, Contact Office of Faculty and Staff Labor Relations
Contact Information: (860) 486-5684
Official Website: http://www.lr.uconn.edu/

 

Employees are forbidden to engage in the conduct listed below and may be disciplined or dismissed for doing so. The list is not exhaustive.

  1. Unlawfully distributing, selling, possessing, using, or being under the influence of alcohol or drugs when on the job or subject to duty;
  2. Misusing or willfully neglecting University property, funds, materials, equipment, or supplies;
  3. Fighting, engaging in horseplay, or acting in any manner which endangers the safety of oneself or others. This prohibition includes acts of violence as well as threats of violence.
  4. Marking or defacing walls, fixtures, equipment, machinery, or other University property, or willfully damaging or destroying property in anyway;
  5. Interfering in any way with the work of others;
  6. Stealing or possessing without authority any equipment, tools, materials, or other property of the University, or attempting to remove them from the premises without written permission from the appropriate authority;
  7. Being inattentive to duty including sleeping on the job.
  8. Refusing to do assigned work or to work overtime if directed, or failing to carry out the reasonable directive of a manager, supervisor, or department head.
  9. Falsifying any time card, attendance report, or other University record or giving false information to anyone whose duty it is to make such record;
  10. Being repeatedly or continuously absent or late, being absent without notice or reason satisfactory to the University, or leaving one’s work assignment without authorization;
  11. Conducting oneself in any manner, which is offensive, abusive, or contrary to common decency or morality; carrying out any form of harassment including sexual harassment;
  12.   Operating state-owned vehicles or private vehicles for state business without proper license or operating any vehicle on University property or on University business in an unsafe or improper manner;
  13. Having an unauthorized weapon on University property;
  14. Appropriating state or student equipment, time, or resources for personal use or gain;
  15. Engaging in actions which constitute a conflict of interest with one’s University job; including but not limited to, in the case of academic administrators and faculty, the teaching of credit courses at other educational institutions, unless approved in advance in accordance with established procedures;
  16. Gambling or soliciting money or other types of solicitation;
  17. Smoking within no-smoking areas, a no-smoking operation, or an area of the University that must be entered for the conduct of University business;
  18. Computer abuse, including but not limited to. plagiarism of programs, misuse of computer accounts, unauthorized destruction of files, creating illegal accounts, possession of unauthorized passwords, disruptive or annoying behavior on the computer, and non-work related utilization of computer software and hardware;
  19. Conviction of a crime;
  20. Engaging in activities which violate either the state’s or the University’s code of ethics.

Violating these rules is cause for disciplinary action up to and including dismissal. A supervisor’s failure to enforce a rule does not excuse an employee from complying with it, not does it prevent the University from taking disciplinary action thereafter.

Nothing in this policy constrains the University from pursuing criminal prosecution in addition to dealing with or responding to issues administratively.

For questions about which disciplinary action to take in a given situation, please consult with the Office of Faculty and Staff Labor Relations at 860-486-5684. Additional guidance is provided in the appropriate collective bargaining agreement and the University’s pre-disciplinary and disciplinary procedures, which are found in the Office of Faculty and Staff Labor Relations Procedures Regarding Potential Disciplinary Action and the University Administrator’s Guide to Corrective Action and Progressive Discipline.

These documents can be found at the Office of Faculty and Staff Labor Relations website at: http://www.lr.uconn.edu