Contact and Mentoring
Contact and Mentoring
The Grey School of Wizardry is an educational institution. While our community is warm, collegial, and often personally meaningful to those who take part in it, relationships within the School must remain clear, appropriate, and properly understood.
Most GSW pupils are adults. Apprentices and Magisters may form friendships, work together in Lodges, attend events, debate ideas, and take part in the life of the School as members of an adult academic community. Even so, faculty and staff occupy positions of trust, authority, and influence. They may teach, grade, advise, recommend, moderate, supervise, handle records, or participate in disciplinary decisions. Because of that authority, faculty and staff must maintain professional boundaries with pupils.
This policy exists to protect pupils, faculty, staff, volunteers, families, and the School itself.
Faculty and Adult Pupil Boundaries
A faculty or staff member must not use their position at GSW to initiate, pursue, pressure, or deepen a personal, romantic, sexual, financial, or otherwise intimate relationship with a pupil. This is especially important where the faculty or staff member may grade the pupil’s work, advise them, recommend them, supervise them, handle their records, moderate spaces they participate in, or take part in disciplinary or administrative decisions involving them.
Even when everyone involved is an adult, the faculty-pupil relationship is not equal. A Professor, Department Head, officer, adviser, or administrator carries the authority of the School. Personal relationships that blur that authority may create conflicts of interest, perceived favoritism, discomfort, pressure, or the appearance of exploitation.
If a genuine personal friendship, family connection, business relationship, romantic relationship, or other close association exists before a pupil’s enrollment, or before a faculty or staff member takes on authority over that pupil, the relationship is not automatically prohibited. However, it should be disclosed to the appropriate School officer if the faculty or staff member may grade, advise, supervise, discipline, recommend, or otherwise evaluate that pupil. When appropriate, another faculty or staff member may be assigned to handle grading, advising, review, or disciplinary matters.
Social Media and Personal Accounts
Faculty and pupils should preserve the faculty-pupil relationship in its proper light. GSW uses titles, offices, Lodges, classrooms, and official channels because the School relationship is not the same as an ordinary social relationship. A Professor remains a Professor in the eyes of pupils, even when encountered outside the classroom.
Faculty and staff should therefore avoid forming personal social media relationships with currently enrolled Apprentices, Magisters, or Psyche pupils through private personal accounts. Faculty should not send, solicit, encourage, or routinely accept friend requests from current pupils on personal accounts, and should not use personal social media as a place for pupil engagement, mentoring, School discussion, or School business.
This policy is not intended to police the private views of faculty or staff, nor to prevent adults from having ordinary private lives. Faculty and staff may hold and express personal opinions on their own time and in their own spaces. However, when pupils are connected to a faculty member’s personal social media, personal posts may be carried back into classes, campus spaces, Lodge spaces, Discord, vGSW, or School discussions in a way that blurs the boundary between the faculty member’s private life and their School authority.
Politics, religion, and other charged public matters require particular care. GSW may study religion, philosophy, history, symbolism, ethics, culture, politics, and society in appropriate academic contexts. That is different from pupils rallying around, debating, or importing a faculty member’s personal political or religious posts into School life because they saw them on a personal account.
If a faculty or staff member has a genuine pre-existing personal friendship with a pupil before that pupil enrolls, the School does not require the faculty or staff member to sever that friendship. However, School matters must not be handled through personal social media, and the relationship should be disclosed if the faculty or staff member may grade, advise, supervise, discipline, recommend, or otherwise evaluate that pupil.
Professional pages, public faculty pages, author pages, lecture pages, official School spaces, institutional email, approved School platforms, and School community channels are the appropriate places for faculty-pupil interaction.
School Communication and Confidentiality
Faculty, staff, mentors, officers, and pupils must not discuss grades, academic records, disciplinary matters, private pupil concerns, internal School business, or confidential School matters through personal social media, private personal channels, or informal outside conversations.
Pupils seeking academic help should use the appropriate School channels. Faculty and staff should redirect School-related conversations back to official or approved spaces when needed.
This does not prevent ordinary friendliness, encouragement, or collegial conversation. It does mean that School business should remain in School spaces.
Mentoring in the Grey School
Mentoring is an important part of the Grey School experience. A good mentor may help a pupil understand academic expectations, develop discipline, think through ideas, explore a department, prepare for advancement, or find their proper path through the School.
Mentoring at GSW must remain professional, educational, and School-centered. It should not become overly intimate, emotionally dependent, secretive, romantic, exploitative, or separated from the ordinary oversight of the School.
If an Apprentice or Magister has a general non-academic need, their Prefect, Captain, Lodge Head, or the Master of Pupils should generally be their first stop.
If an Apprentice or Magister has an academic need, they should contact the appropriate teacher, Department Head, academic adviser, or the Master of Studies.
If an Apprentice seeks a more in-depth academic experience, their first step should be to complete Level 1. This will acquaint them with a range of magickal subjects and, by virtue of completing the required classes, a basic level of magickal skill. If they identify special magickal interests during this time, they should join the appropriate departmental spaces and relevant clubs, giving them access to a wider academic community within that department.
Once an Apprentice reaches Level 2, they should choose a Major and, if desired, a Minor. They should then become active in the appropriate departmental spaces. Together, these steps provide an individualized and challenging experience for the motivated Apprentice while keeping their progress within the School’s academic structure.
Magisters, by the nature of their program, may seek more advanced, specialized, or collegial academic engagement. Faculty may support this through approved School channels, departmental spaces, lectures, office hours, reviewed coursework, School events, and properly structured mentoring. Faculty should remain mindful that advanced academic engagement is still part of the School relationship and should not become a private personal attachment.
In-Person Mentoring, Internships, and School Gatherings
If an Apprentice or Magister lives close to a faculty member geographically, they may choose to arrange work through an approved Internship class, in-person lesson, or other approved School structure.
Faculty members who plan to attend Conclaves, Moots, or other School gatherings may let pupils know that they are available for mentoring and teaching sessions during the event. Such sessions should be appropriate to the setting, connected to the School’s educational purpose, and conducted in a way that preserves professional boundaries.
For adult pupils, one-on-one academic conversations may occur where appropriate, but faculty and staff should remain mindful of setting, tone, privacy, and the appearance of impropriety. When a matter becomes personal, emotionally intense, disciplinary, romantic, financial, or otherwise complicated, the faculty or staff member should redirect the pupil to the proper School officer or channel. Personal Apprenticeships
The Grey School recognizes that, in some cases, an adult Apprentice or Magister may benefit from a more formal one-on-one apprenticeship under a qualified faculty member or approved mentor. Such arrangements may be appropriate when the pupil is pursuing a clearly defined area of study, practice, research, craft, service, or professional development that falls within the mission and academic life of the School.
Personal Apprenticeships are not available to Psyche pupils.
A Personal Apprenticeship must not be informal, assumed, secretive, or based merely on private friendship. To be recognized by GSW, a Personal Apprenticeship must be set forth in a written apprenticeship contract between the involved parties and submitted to the Administration for review and ratification before it may carry School credit.
The apprenticeship contract should identify the mentor, the pupil, the field or subject of study, the expected duration, the method and frequency of meetings, the learning goals, the required work, the expected conduct of both parties, the boundaries of the relationship, the method of evaluation, and the credit value being requested. School communication, records, academic review, and final evaluation must remain within approved School channels.
If ratified by the Administration, a Personal Apprenticeship may count toward the elective credits required for graduation. In some cases, where the apprenticeship is clearly aligned with the pupil’s declared Major or Minor and has been approved by the appropriate academic authority, it may also count toward Major or Minor credit. Core class requirements are not replaced by a Personal Apprenticeship and must still be completed in the ordinary manner.
Because faculty and mentors remain in positions of trust and authority, Personal Apprenticeships must be conducted with clear professional boundaries. They must not become romantic, exploitative, financially improper, emotionally dependent, or separated from the oversight of the School. A mentor should not be the sole person responsible for approving credit where a conflict of interest may exist. The Administration may require outside review, additional documentation, or evaluation by the appropriate Department Head, Master of Studies, or other appointed reviewer.
A Personal Apprenticeship may be modified or ended by either party, or by the Administration, if it no longer serves the pupil’s education, no longer remains within appropriate boundaries, or no longer reflects the standards of the School.
The purpose of this structure is to preserve the traditional strength of apprenticeship while ensuring that all such relationships remain consensual, transparent, academically meaningful, and properly accountable to the Grey School.
Psyche Pupils and Youth Protection
There can be no inappropriate personal contact or inappropriate personal relationship between an unrelated adult and a Psyche pupil in the Grey School.
GSW staff and faculty are responsible for maintaining a professional relationship with Psyche pupils at all times. While staff and faculty may teach, support, guide, and mentor, they must not engage in overly familiar, secretive, emotionally intimate, romantic, sexual, or otherwise inappropriate relationships with Psyche pupils. Staff and faculty should not present themselves as private confidantes to Psyche pupils outside the proper educational and pastoral structure of the School.
Psyche pupils may, at times, benefit from having mature faculty or staff members to speak with and receive counsel from. Such mentoring must remain clearly professional, School-centered, and appropriate to the pupil’s age and circumstances. It must never become overly intimate, overly familiar, private in an improper way, or separated from the School’s ordinary channels of oversight.
Adult Apprentices and Magisters must also avoid inappropriate personal contact with Psyche pupils. This expectation applies to all adult members of the School community, not only faculty and staff.
One-on-One Contact with Psyche Pupils
In all in-person GSW activities, including Conclaves, Moots, internships, meetups, field experiences, and related gatherings, a Psyche pupil should never be left alone with an unrelated adult.
All Psyche pupils must attend Conclaves or Moots with at least one parent or legal guardian. In the case of internships or similar educational experiences, parents or guardians must meet the teacher or supervising adult, review the situation, and ensure that the youth pupil will not be left alone with an unrelated adult.
If an adult teacher and an unrelated Psyche pupil are working together in person, the parent or guardian must be present, or the activity must occur in an approved group setting with appropriate supervision.
These rules protect both the youth pupil and the adult faculty, staff, volunteer, or pupil involved.
Legal and Institutional Responsibilities
Relationships between youths and adults in an educational setting may be subject to state and federal laws, reporting requirements, youth-protection standards, privacy obligations, and institutional policies. GSW will comply with all applicable laws and will maintain policies intended to protect youth pupils, adult pupils, faculty, staff, volunteers, and the School.
Nothing in this policy prevents or delays the reporting of suspected abuse, exploitation, grooming, harassment, or other misconduct to the appropriate School officer, parent or guardian, civil authority, or child-protection agency where such reporting is required or appropriate.
Reporting Concerns
Pupils, parents, faculty, staff, volunteers, or community members who become aware of a possible violation of these policies should bring their concerns directly to the appropriate School officer. This may include a Lodge Prefect, Captain, Lodge Head, the Master of Pupils, the Master of Studies, or the Headmaster, depending on the nature of the concern.
Concerns involving youth protection, harassment, exploitation, grooming, abuse, threats, retaliation, conflicts of interest, or serious misconduct should be treated as urgent and confidential. Those receiving such concerns must not spread the matter through gossip or public discussion. These issues must be handled quickly, discreetly, and through the proper channels.
Amendment and Enforcement
These policies may be amended or supplemented as needed. They shall become part of the School Handbook and part of the agreement that new staff and faculty make with the Grey School.
Violation of these policies may result in disciplinary action, including removal from a class, removal from a School office or role, expulsion of Apprentices or Magisters, removal of staff or faculty members, termination of volunteer responsibilities, restriction from School spaces, or other action deemed necessary by the Administration.
