In an Honor Committee meeting last night, current and newly-elected members met to decide how to run the Committee's most recent referendum and set a date for the student vote.
If passed, the referendum would remove seriousness as a consideration in determining guilt in honor cases concerning academic cheating. Now, a student only can be convicted of an honor offense if his or her action is deemed serious enough to compromise the University's community of trust.
The Committee decided to send the referendum to student vote April 3-6 during the annual Honor Awareness Week. This is the last week the referendum is eligible to be voted on according to the Committee Constitution.
Members debated last night on what would be the most effective way to hold the referendum vote. Traditionally all student groups have held referendum and position elections on the Student Council online voting server.
But two weeks ago, Council denied the Committee the use of its online voting system. Council cited a number of reasons for not allowing the Committee to use the server, including fear that the Committee would not be able to achieve the minimal 10 percent participation needed for the referendum vote to be legitimate. Also, Council members said they harbored concerns that allowing the Committee to use the server would be against Council's constitution since the Committee did not meet specific deadlines in getting the referendum to Council.
The Committee debated two ways to hold the referendum vote now that they cannot use the Council server. Some Committee members wanted to use paper ballots while others were in favor of using a mass e-mail to send electronic ballots to all students.
The Committee decided to use the traditional paper ballots after concluding that a mass e-mail would not be a feasible option in the two weeks remaining before the scheduled vote.
The Committee said the paper ballot option will allow them to get started on planning and educating immediately.
A special subcommittee consisting of both current and Committee-elect members was formed last night to begin planning how to hold the paper ballot election.
While Committee members admit that a paper ballot election is atypical at the University, members said they are optimistic about this election.
Paper balloting "has worked in the past and it will work again," Architecture School Rep. Scott Sottile said.
While plans still are being worked out, the special subcommittee released some details of the election process.
One Honor Committee representative will man ballot boxes which will be open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at one central location at all non-College schools. The College will have three ballot box locations - the Lawn, the Aquatic and Fitness Center and Observatory Hill Dining Hall.
Terra Weirich, Committee vice chairwoman for trials, said she is optimistic about the turnout for this election.
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