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An opportunity to outline the incident and the student’s stance on being not responsible for violating policies. This is the first communication with the Hearing Officer and will outline how the student intends to prove that they are not responsible for violating policies. The University will also have an opportunity to present an Opening Statement. Things a student should include in their opening statement are:

• Introduction of Student: who are you as a student and a person
• Statement of not responsible: description of why you are not responsible for violating policies
• Mentioning documentation (including page numbers): information that supports your claim of not responsible. You can use documents that you provided as evidence as well.
• Mention witnesses: people who will provide insight to your claim of not responsible or how there may be bias present with University witnesses that are due to speak

The questioning process allows for both parties to call witnesses to provide insight to the case.

• Direct questioning: an opportunity for the student to question witness that support their stance of not responsible.
• Cross questioning: an opportunity to ask questions of the witnesses that the University has provided and to discredit documentation or find weaknesses in their previous statements (either in the hearing packet or during their direct questioning). This is the student’s opportunity to show any potential bias that the witness may have or question the relevance of their statements.

A summary of all the documentation and witness statements that support the student’s claim of not responsible. The closing statement should:

• Re-state your position of being not responsible for violating policies
• Provide a summary of evidence that supports your position of not being responsible
• Identify and address weaknesses in witness statements that supports your position of being not responsible
• Restate the policy/policies in question and how there was no violation to the policy/policies
• Restate your position of not responsible and ask for case to be dismissed