On the agenda at last week”s Faculty Senate meeting was a vote on the recommended changes to the process of hearing cases of violations to the Student Code of Conduct. Faculty Senate passed the proposed changes at the end of the meeting.
Aside from minor changes in language, Vice Chair of Faculty Senate Liz Brandt said the major revisions focused on making the process of hearing cases more efficient. One of the approved changes is that cases will be heard by three members of the Student Disciplinary Review Board (SDRB). Brandt said previously there needed to be at least five of the nine members of the SDRB in order to have a quorum.
“I think that will really help us process cases faster,” Brandt said.
The approved revisions also increased the number of people on the SDRB from nine to 11 by adding two staff members.
The final change created a student appeals committee, made up of faculty, staff and students, Brandt said. The committee would also hear cases in panels of three.
This is different from the previous system because Faculty Senate is now out of the loop on the appeals process, Brandt said. Before, two panels of three faculty senators – one panel of Faculty Senate leadership and one of other senators – reviewed each case in depth to make a decision on whether or not to dismiss the appeal.
“You read everything and you agonize over it and then it goes to the three-person committee and they do the same thing,” she said.
Most members of Faculty Senate were in favor of these changes. Brandt said she thinks it”s because faculty senators are some of the busiest people on campus, and when cases arose in the past, most members didn”t know what they were supposed to do when analyzing the appeals. These revisions will hopefully speed the process along with individuals who are more knowledgeable about the system, she said.
Faculty Sen. Annette Folwell of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences asked about the amount of representation across demographics in the new three-person committees. She said two previous hearings she knew of required female members to review it, and wondered if that would still be possible with the new revisions.
Brandt said equal representation is not out of the question, but it was not the main point of the revisions. Depending on the cases that come up, she said it would be possible to have diverse representation on the committees. Faculty Secretary Don Crowley said it may not always be a perfect process, but that was something they could pay attention to when examining future cases.
Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ErinBamer