Penalties and escalation

The ladder, in the policy's own order

When an academic offence is found, Policy 71 §4 says the student receives at minimum a letter of reprimand. Above that floor the academic penalties, in the order the policy lists them, run: letter of reprimand → disciplinary probation → a grade penalty on the piece, the test or the course (including a zero, a failing grade, or a modified final grade) → and, further up, suspension and expulsion. The list between probation and suspension also includes extra academic work, removal of privileges, additional courses and community service; and beyond expulsion sits revocation of a degree — which applies after graduation, so it is not a penalty a current student faces. Learn the spine: reprimand, probation, grade penalty, suspension, expulsion. (Policy text last updated 2019/2020; read September 2026.)

Two things the ladder is not. It is not "a warning first": the floor is a letter of reprimand on your record, and a first offence is not always at the floor — the penalty depends on the offence. And there is no "integrity workshop" penalty; the Academic Integrity office's learning modules are a resource, not a rung.

Who decides

Not the instructor. The instructor who suspects an offence reports it; the associate dean (undergraduate or graduate) of the faculty investigates, meets the student, decides whether an offence occurred, and sets the penalty. Cases that involve criminal proceedings go to the Vice-President, Academic and Provost. A TA never decides anything; the registrar records outcomes but does not set them. The student can appeal under Policy 72.

The record follows you

The associate dean of the student's home faculty keeps the discipline record. If the student changes faculty, the record is forwarded to the new faculty's associate dean. So a second offence in a different course — or a different faculty — is treated as a second offence, and the Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties escalate on repetition: a typical second offence is a suspension, a third a longer one, a fourth expulsion. Letters of reprimand and probation sit on the discipline record (not the transcript) and expire at graduation; expulsion is permanent and appears on the transcript.

Worked example — one student, two findings

First finding, 1B. Dev, in Accounting and Financial Management, submits a group-project section that contains three paragraphs from a consulting firm's white paper, uncited. The instructor reports it; the associate dean meets Dev, finds plagiarism, and applies the typical first-offence outcome from the Guidelines: zero on the piece, five marks off the final course grade, and disciplinary probation. Not a warning — a first plagiarism finding at Waterloo has a grade penalty attached in the usual case.

Second finding, 3A. Dev has transferred to a program in another faculty. On a take-home test he uses a solutions site the instructions forbid. The new faculty's associate dean opens the file — Dev's record was forwarded when he transferred — and this is a second offence. The typical outcome is a suspension, on top of a grade penalty. Dev's mistake was not the solutions site alone; it was assuming that a new faculty was a clean slate.

Predict the band

1. A first offence of impersonation — a friend sits your online quiz. The Guidelines treat impersonation as normally including a suspension even for a first offence, for both students. Severity, not count, sets the rung.
2. A third offence, any kind. A longer suspension — around three terms — and the next one is expulsion.

The pattern: the rung depends on how serious the offence is and how many times it has happened, the associate dean sets it under the policy, and the count is kept across the whole university because the record moves with you.