1.1 RMIT is committed to developing and maintaining a quality educational environment by ensuring professional conduct by staff at all times. Such conduct may be compromised in fact or appearance where staff have both personal and professional relations with students. In this situation, staff are responsible for removing themselves from the resulting potential conflict of interest, with no disadvantage to the student concerned. It is recognised that relationships between staff and students are generally characterised by significant power imbalance resulting from their different positions in the institutional structure. This imbalance means that students are relatively vulnerable and therefore require certain procedures to protect them from this conflict of interest.
Staff being relatively powerful, simultaneously have particular responsibilities to all students.
Recognition of this shall inform the dissemination of the policy to students. While consensual relations may be entered into freely and voluntarily by both parties, it does not remove the duty of care owed by RMIT to its students. The policy applies regardless of who the initiating party is. The policy aims to safeguard staff members' work relationships as teachers, supervisors or administrators, and to secure the interests of students enrolled in academic programs within the University. It also aims to provide clear procedural guidelines for staff disclosing personal relations with students.