Can perceptions of mental health be shared in a reference letter?
Questions: Is it appropriate and/or allowed for a professor to discuss their perceptions of my mental health on a reference for grad school?
Hello,
Thanks for your question. I suspect the question and response will be of value to others. My first response was to want to speak to confidentiality in counselling (we never share information about students without a student’s signed consent), but realized you were talking about perceptions a professor has about your mental health.
There are several problems with your professor commenting on your mental health in a reference letter. First, since your professor is not qualified to assess your mental health status they cannot speak to this. Even if they are also registered mental health professionals, they are not in this role when they are preparing a reference letter. Second, if there was a diagnosis of a mental illness that the professor knew about, this says nothing about your ability to do grad school. Many people diagnosed with a mental illness are able to thrive and have great success in University because they have found effective treatment and ways of coping. Third, when there is a psychiatric disability there is a duty to accommodate that person and to explore how they, with some possible adjustments, are able to meet the learning requirements. What that accommodation actually looks like can be different because of specific program requirements that will limit the kind of accommodations that are possible and appropriate.
What your professor is able speak to in preparing a reference, is knowledge of your performance. This would all be with reference to your actual behavior. This could include questions such as the following: Did you hand things in on time? Was the quality of the work up to the standards required by graduate studies? Can you work independently?
I am going to refer you to the Office of Campus Equity and Meaningful Inclusion with any further questions about this. Khaula Bhutta is a human rights advisor who works out of this MRU office. She will be able to say more about your options for handling a situation where your professor is including, in your reference, perceptions on your mental health. Her email is kbhutta@mtroyal.ca.
I wish you all the best in resolving your concern.
Mirjam Knapik, Ph.D., R. Psych.
Cheating: Report or not?
Question: A student claimed an assignment worth 2.5% as his own, and I know it wasn’t his. He told me a few days before that he did not have a chance to do the assignment, and yet, he claimed someone else’s work as his own. After he claimed the paper and sat back down, I asked him if that was his since he told me he didn’t do it. He confessed to me that it wasn’t his but he didn’t want to lose marks for not doing the assignment. The question is, should I tell my prof that that assignment isn’t his? Or should I let it go because I have no proof?
Thank you for your question. It sounds like a tricky situation and a difficult decision regarding what to do next. As counsellors, we are famous (infamous maybe?) for not giving specific advice but instead encouraging people to consider as many options as possible and then choosing what is best for them. There is a variety of information we can consider when making a decision about what actions fit best for us including: what we THINK about the situation, what we FEEL about the options available to us, and the VALUES we hold that might guide the decisions we make. Here are some questions you can consider that could help you decide what to do:
First, what do you think/feel/value about plagiarism? Is it something that bothers you or something you think/feel/value needs to be addressed in some way? Would it make a difference if the assignment was worth 25% instead of 2.5%? I wonder how it might feel if this student gets a higher grade than you at the end of the semester?
Second, what do you think/feel/value about bringing this to your professor’s attention? I wonder how the decision to share this information with a professor or not might impact you. How might you think/feel to release information that might impact this student? What would you think/feel about keeping the information about the plagiarism to yourself? Would the impact on you change over the next few days or weeks? I also wonder if knowing about the plagiarism and sharing or not sharing might impact the relationship with this other student.
Third, I wonder how the decision to share this information with a professor or not might impact your class. I was not sure from your description whether the work belonged to another student in the class but if it did, I wonder what the impact might be on the person who did complete the assignment?
Finally, I wonder how the decision to share this information with a professor or not might impact this student. I wonder what you might think/feel/value about talking to the student directly about this issue and assessing how they would feel about coming clean themselves? Is it possible that the professor might figure out that this assignment was not written by the student in another way? Sometimes it can be difficult to make a decision if we are unsure what the impact would be. You can access information from the Mount Royal website about what would happen if a professor became aware of plagiarism: http://www.mtroyal.ca/CampusServices/CampusResources/StudentConduct/TipsforStudents/
I invite you to use the information from your answers to the above questions to create a pros and cons list of reporting the plagiarism or not reporting it. It might feel like a clear decision after looking at the list or you might feel like you’re trying to pick the “best of the worst” option. Either way, you may feel like you have spent time exploring the options and made an informed decision.
If you’re still feeling stuck, feel free to attend a session with one of our counsellors to explore this situation in more detail.
Take care,
Jennifer McCormick, M.Sc., R.Psych.