In the midst of lawsuits against the honor system and a Board of Visitor's request that the Honor Committee review honor practices, Chairman Hunter Ferguson presented a review of the Committee's constitution to the Board Friday.
The Committee spent almost a year reviewing the honor system in response to a series of concerns Board members raised last winter.
The report addressed over a dozen issues concerning the Honor Commitee, including trial panel composition, the single sanction and the timeliness of trial adjudication.
Board member Benjamin P. A. Warthen said he is fairly pleased with the Honor Committee's progress.
The review "hasn't answered every question we have raised," Warthen said. But "we think they are headed in the right direction."
Board Secretary Alexander "Sandy" Gilliam pointed to the swift adjudication of cases as one indicator that the Honor Committee has been taking the Board's concerns seriously.
"Last year there was a huge backload of cases," said Nicole Eramo, special assistant to the Honor Committee.
The previous Committee significantly reduced the number of cases in the system, and the current Committee has been able to "stay on top of the case load," Eramo said.
Ferguson attributed the improvement to hard work by last year's Committee and a continuation of that effort by this year's Committee members.
"There is outstanding leadership among" the vice chairs for education, investigation and trials, Ferguson said.
"They are building on the precedent set by last year's Committee," he said.
The improvement also could be attributed to the Committee working year round, Gilliam said.
"They've started operating over the summer, and that has done a great deal" to help the Committee move cases quickly through the system, he said.
Board member Elsie Holland said she was satisfied that Ferguson addressed concerns about biases in the system against minorities at the University.
Holland said she supports the Committee's efforts to help get minorities involved with the honor system.
"The decision makers should be diverse" and representative of the student body, she said.
She added that it is difficult to evaluate the system fully because "it is such a subjective kind of program."
Although the report did not recommend specifically any large scale changes, Ferguson said the Committee is in a good position to act on the findings discussed in the report to the Board.
"I am hesitant to predict exactly what will come forward," but there probably will be some changes proposed in the coming months, he said.
Past Committees sometimes have had difficulty enacting change because they have not realized what specific changes need to be made until the end of their term, Ferguson said.
But conducting this constitutional review early in the Committee's term has allowed it to examine the system in depth early on, he said.
He added the Committee specifically hopes to address the transition process between Committees after elections.
In the past, Committees have had trouble adjusting to the rapid transition, he said.
"There needs to be a smoother transition from year to year," he added.
"There is debate about how to do that, and that is where conflicting propositions come in," Ferguson said.
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