Committee evaluates Student Code of Conduct

A committee has been formed to revise the current Student Code of Conduct. This committee will look at the current Code of Conduct and decide what parts require changing.

“In the current system, the process takes too long,” said William Schafer, vice president of Student Affairs. “The system needs to be efficient and fair for the students who are involved.”

The decision to revise the Code of Conduct came from recommendations from a variety of sources on campus.

“When I arrived at Tech two years ago, I talked with a variety of people including students faculty and staff and came to the conclusion that the current system needed to be fine tuned,” Schafer said.

Several sources were consulted on how to best revise the system, including one outside consultant, Don Gehring, to help evaluate the current system to see what changes need to be made.

“Gehring was a part of the Higher Education Department at Bowling Green University from which he retired. He is well known for working with student conduct,” Schafer said. “He has spoken at numerous national conferences and has written a lot of material on the subject.”

“Initially we sent him the current Code of Conduct on paper and he came up with a list of recommendations,” Schafer said.

With those recommendations, a committee was formed to discuss the recommendations and see what revisions need to be made.

The fifteen-member student, faculty and staff committee is chaired by Ray Vito, the associate dean of the School of Mechanical Engineering.

The committee is looking at a number of possible revisions, though a few major changes stand out.

“The first and foremost thing the committee is looking at is to reduce the steps in the process,” Schafer said. “The current system has several steps, including the appeals process, and we feel that there are too many. The main goal is to have a fair process, but to have one that is timely as well.”

According to Schafer, the second aspect that the committee is looking at are things that are practiced but not put down in writing anywhere.

“We want to look to make sure that these are the best ways to do things and to see if we want to change anything,” Schafer said.

Clarity in wording is the last major change the committee is proposing. The committee wants to make sure that the proposals are understood by the students.

“The third aspect is to make sure that whatever it is we propose, we write it down as clearly as possible,” Schafer said.

“We want to make sure that any students who are faced with the process will be able to research the process and be able to understand what it is they will be going through.”

The time frame for the proposals going into effect is still tentative and based on the large approval process the proposals will have to travel through.

“Once the committee comes up with proposals, those proposals have to go through an approval process,” Schafer said. “We have to get approval from the faculty senate who have their last meeting of the semester in a couple of weeks.”

According to Schafer, the proposals will be submitted during the fall semester when the faculty senate reconvenes.

“We hope to have approval for the major changes midway through the fall semester,” Schafer said.

Much work still has to be done by the committee, according to Schafer.

“We need to do our work first and be comfortable with the structure of the proposals,” Schafer said. “It’s a big job, but when you have a diverse body of people, you really have good discussions to get where you need to be.”

Schafer said that the committee feels that once their work is done, they will have improved the Tech community and made the Code of Conduct more fair for the students who find themselves involved in the process.

“We think that when we are finished, we will have something good for the students,” Schafer said.