Honor's Diversity Awareness Committee (DAC) is undergoing a restructuring process in an attempt to increase its visibility within the University community as a whole and within the honor system.
The DAC, a sub-committee of the University's Honor Committee, used to be "too separate of a committee that didn't educate both faculty and students," said DAC Co-Chairwoman Lindy Blevins, a fourth-year student. Blevins also is a Committee representative from the Commerce School.
The DAC also is very concerned with the issue of spotlighting within the honor system, Blevins said.
"Spotlighting" refers to the feeling that some students - particularly minorities and athletes - are more likely to be charged with and investigated for honor violations than others.
"A number of groups felt excluded from the honor system - minorities, athletes and even grad students - and both the Honor Committee and the DAC wants all groups to feel a part of the honor system," Honor Committee Chairman Thomas Hall said.
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Statistics for the 1999-2000 school year show the percentage of honor charges brought against minority students is disproportionate to the percentage of minority students enrolled at the University - a phenomenon commonly referred to as "overrepresentation."
Black students currently comprise about 8.5 percent of the student body, but were investigated in 16 percent of honor cases: 10 out of a total of 61.
Minority students made up 21 percent of all those investigated.
The DAC will begin to act as a go-between for students and faculty, to draw further attention to issues involving minority students. Members of the DAC, known as "educators," will be assigned to a specific University minority group.
These educators will attend meetings of the groups to listen to group members' concerns and to gain a better understanding of the issues at hand, in order to represent the concerns of those groups.
The educators will then report back to the entire DAC and from there, organize roundtable meetings that will take place about every four to six weeks.
The meetings, coordinated by the Diversity Task Force - which includes Blevins, co-chair Stephanie Hsu, and educators and advisors Brian Smith and Nick Hunter - will be open to both members of the faculty and the student body.
"The main agenda is to build trust and keep lines of communication open," Hsu said.
The DTF will also work closely with major minority groups and their executive committees to foster a strong working relationship between the group, the DAC and the Honor Committee.
"We want to get groups to participate and if they gain a better understanding of honor, they won't be afraid and will want to make honor work better," Hunter said. "I have faith in the honor system and if minorities have faith in it, their faith will carry over to faculty and the University as a whole. We want to continue to build the community of trust."
If the DAC develops as those involved with the Committee hope, the DAC will become a "vehicle of accountability. We are building alliances among different organizations and different groups that hasn't been there for a number of years," Hsu said.
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