The KPU academic appeals committee hears appeals of plagiarism decisions, grades and non-academic misconduct. The committee will be made up of the chair, who is a senior KPU administrator, a dean, a student and a faculty member, all from different faculties than the one the decision originated from. Appeal committee hearings usually also invite the person whose decision is under appeal to defend the merits and the procedure they followed in making it. In many cases, this will be the first time you will learn the procedure and the decision-maker’s thoughts on the arguments you originally put forward. Hearings can take months to schedule, and usually last one to two hours. Generally, the student will get to speak first to make their case, then the dean will respond, and then the student will get to speak again. The committee members will then ask questions and discuss the issues with everyone. The student then gets another chance for a closing statement, after which the appeals committee members and chair will deliberate. A written decision letter from the chair usually comes within one or two weeks.
While officially the committee only hears appeals that are based on unfairness or bias in the procedure of the first level, in practice the committee doesn’t always identify and understand bias procedural fairness arguments and often digs in to the merits of the decision under appeal anyway.