Honor Court Review Close to Conclusion

After more than a year in the making, the most comprehensive review of the student judicial system in three decades is moving closer to conclusion.

On Friday, the Faculty Council approved a resolution adopting the Committee on Student Conduct's recommendations for amending the Instrument of Student Judicial Governance.

The move comes after an entire semester of work by COSC, whose members investigated efficient and thorough means of reworking the campus's honor system.

Although Chancellor James Moeser has the ultimate say in the review's fate and implementation, Student Congress' review of the recommendations is the only step remaining before recommendations are sent to him for the rubber stamp.

Those closely involved in the process say they expect that Congress will take swift action on COSC's recommendations next month and that the chancellor will sign on by March.

If Congress doesn't pass a comparable version of COSC's proposed revisions, it could push back the review's timeline dramatically and send COSC back to the drawing board.

But many are crossing their fingers in hopes that such a setback doesn't happen.

"I don't think there are too many hot-button issues in there," said Judith Wegner, COSC chairwoman. "There's been a great deal of discussion among the students on these things."

The review itself has undergone extensive modifications since the beginning of the process back in December 2001, when a task force appointed by the chancellor began examining honor and integrity on campus and discussing ways to re-emphasize those virtues through the honor system.

In June 2002, the task force issued an extensive report outlining trouble spots in UNC's honor system and suggesting new -- and in some cases controversial -- ways to alleviate those problems.

"Our notion was one of education rather than punishment," said law Professor Marilyn Yarbrough, who led the task force.

At that point, the task force's work was done, and all last semester, COSC used the group's report to issue its own set of recommendations for approval.

In large measure, COSC's proposals build off the task force's recommendations. For example, the task force suggested that a faculty adviser be established for the student attorney general. In COSC's proposal, the instrument calls for a five-member faculty advisory committee for both the undergraduate and graduate school attorneys general.

But in its proposal, COSC strayed from a couple of the more radical suggestions posed by the task force.

Two notable recommendations from the task force were, first, to add a new grade of "XF" to to students' transcripts if convicted of academic dishonesty and, second, to change the burden of proof in Honor Court hearings from "beyond a reasonable doubt" to "clear and convincing."

COSC members concluded that the "penalties of record" on students' transcripts sufficed rather than adding an XF grade. The committee also believed that, instead of changing the burden of proof, a clearer definition of "beyond a reasonable doubt" was in order.

"We knew there would be a review by COSC, and we suspected that COSC would not adopt the more far-reaching recommendations we made," Yarbrough said. "We were a little bold, I think, in some of the recommendations we made."

With the more controversial proposals out of the way, those who have worked on COSC hope their revisions will make their way through Congress easily.

Although the revisions passed through the Faculty Council without much contention, Wegner admitted that there might be some fundamental differences in perspectives toward the honor system between students and faculty. "In a sense, there might be some different assumptions between the faculty and the students based on their various experiences with the system," she said.

But as the responsibility of reviewing COSC's revisions approaches Congress, Speaker Carey Richter, who also serves on COSC, said she is confident that representatives will be up-to-par on the issues at hand.

"I think the big deal is that students are not as informed," she said. "Students are going to have to work a lot harder to be on the same page. ... I have faith that Student Congress will do its homework."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.