Georgetown recently introduced the university’s new director of the Office of Student Conduct, Kernysha Rowe, who spoke about her journey to Georgetown and her hopes for this role—excerpts below.
In August, Kernysha Rowe joined Georgetown University as the new director of the Office of Student Conduct, an office that upholds Georgetown’s community standards and oversees non-academic misconduct. Rowe hopes to demystify the office and make it a space for discourse and dialogue.
“We want to be in collaboration with students,” she said. “We are here in community together, and we have to be able to have difficult conversations, and we have to be able to care for one another the way that our mission says.”
Rowe most recently served as the assistant dean of students, student conduct and inclusion support at American University. While there, she created the blueprint for the university’s restorative justice process within the division for student affairs, a process in which, when appropriate, students are invited to engage in dialogue with one another to address conflict, with a focus on accountability and building healthy relationships. She also created a training curriculum for the process and oversaw over a hundred restorative justice conduct cases. Over time, she said, the process helped shift perceptions of the conduct office from a place where “you get in trouble” to one that “helped me talk through the issue.”
‘Being in an institution where you can help others’
At Georgetown, Rowe and her team will implement and administer Georgetown’s revised Code of Student Conduct, which all main campus students are required to uphold. The code, which is updated every year, incorporates restorative justice principles through a new Educational Conference process. The process invites students to meet with a member of Rowe’s office and potentially with other students involved, discuss the incident, learn about the process and review possible options to resolve the matter.
Rowe also wants to make her office a resource and support for all community members. She knows how education can change someone’s life firsthand. Rowe, who immigrated from Birmingham, England, entered fifth grade in Jacksonville, Florida with a thick accent and a different educational background. Navigating the U.S. classroom was challenging: the classroom culture, spelling, cultural references—even the concept of homework was different.
“You had to learn on the go,” she said. “Those roadmaps weren’t there for me. So being able to do that and replicate that for others has always been inspiring.”
Though difficult, her experiences fueled her pursuit of higher education and passion to provide college students with the know-how to succeed. Since graduating from Florida International University, Rowe has earned three graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. from Morgan State University.
“Education opens doors. It opened the door for me to come to America with my mother being a teacher. Higher education opened all of the doors that I have right now. And that’s why I choose to stay in higher education, because I know the ripple impact of being in an institution where you can help others,” she said.
Rowe sat down with Georgetown to discuss what drew her into the field of conduct:
What made you want to pursue higher education as a career?
Rowe: I had always worked full-time in undergrad. I was in the marching band. I was involved in a couple of clubs. But I was naive in thinking, I have a degree. I should be able to apply for a job. What I didn’t understand until maybe [age] 25 is that when I was in school, I should have had a mentor. I should have had internship experiences. I should have done more extracurriculars that allowed me an entryway into those fields. I wouldn’t have known that because no one in my family has gone to college in America.
That informs [why] I wanted to work in higher education, because there are students like myself, immigrants, who don’t have the social capital, who just don’t know. I wanted to focus on shaping what the campus life experience looks like for students. I wanted to be able to be the knowledge, the resource, the encouragement, the visibility, the representation so that they know it’s not just going to school. It’s more than getting As.
Keep reading to hear more from Kernysha Rowe about her role as the director of the Office of Student Conduct. >