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Honor Committee discusses Contributory Mental Disorder process

Summer fellowship also a topic of discussion at last Committee meeting of semester

<p>The Honor Committee held their final meeting of the semester Sunday night.</p>

The Honor Committee held their final meeting of the semester Sunday night.

The Honor Committee held their final meeting of the semester Sunday night, to discuss the Contributory Mental Disorder process and upcoming opportunities including co-sponsorships and a summer fellowship.

The CMD process can be carried out if a student claims they have a psychological condition which contributed to their committing an Honor offense. Third-year College student Jeffrey Warren, vice chair for hearings, said currently, the student must admit to the act before entering into the CMD process. The Committee is now considering the future of that requirement.

“We’re looking into when a student should be required to admit act, when they have the full information about that, if they should be required to admit act at all,” Warren said. “We’re also trying to take a look into our hearing procedures that are internal to Honor to see if we can make it more fair for students by allowing them to submit psychological evidence that provides evidence that they were reported to Honor on the basis of a psychological condition that they have that may have made it look like they were lying, cheating or stealing, but they actually were not.”

Committee members then broke into small groups to discuss the topic.

In their small group, third-year Engineering students Will Rainey and Brandt Welch, Law student Lindsay Fisher and Warren discussed the possibility of implementing a meeting an accused student could have with an administrator or the special assistant to the Honor Committee before he or she was required to admit act. Currently, Dean of Students Allen Groves meets with the student and determines whether the case should go through the CMD process.

“I think it would be helpful to have someone like Evan [Pivonka] or an administrator in the room,” Fisher said. “We are really trying to do what is the best thing for the student.”

After the small groups, the entire Committee discussed reforming the timeliness of the CMD process and explaining the CMD process more in support officer training.

“We’re all looking at edges of this diamond,” graduate Curry student Andrew McCartney said.

During the meeting Honor Chair and third-year College student Devin Rossin also spoke about the Honor Summer Fellowship, in which two students involved in Honor (support officers and representatives) and two students not involved in Honor stay in Charlottesville and work towards improving the honor system.

“The main goal of it is to increase engagement with students across Grounds, different communities who may not be specifically a part of Honor, but want to influence or impact the system in some way,” Rossin said.

Rossin added that the fellows will be paid a stipend.

“The idea is to provide them with some amount of a stipend to work here over the summer, work on improving the Honor system, making it more equitable or whatever they feel needs to be improved with it from their end,” Rossin said. “Really just creating a liaison between us and the community and allowing the community of trust to take ownership over their honor system.”

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