At a special retreat Sunday, the Honor Committee continued debate on its "informed retraction" proposal to reform the single sanction.
The retreat "didn't go as well as we had hoped," Honor Chairman Thomas Hall said.
Although Honor did resolve some contentious issues, other concerns remain to be resolved.
The proposal, first introduced by fourth-year Architecture representative Brian Winterhalter in October 2001, offers students who are being investigated for a potential honor offense an opportunity to plead guilty any time before the investigative panel stage or within seven days of notification of the investigation. If a student chooses to confess, he or she then has to correct the honor offense and leave the University for a period of reflection and rehabilitation.
The current single sanction system does not allow guilty students to return under any circumstances.
Continued heated debate over the value of the single sanction had stalled progress on the proposal last semester and delayed an Honor Committee vote on the issue that could pass it along to the student body as a referendum this spring.
One of the main concerns Honor members discussed at the retreat was "what students can and can't do during the period of suspension," Darden representative Adam Carter said.
"It all came down to questions about credit and these weren't questions we could answer right there," Hall said. Honor still must resolve whether students who leave for a period of reflection could transfer any credit earned during that period to the University.
If students were allowed to transfer credit, "it would not be much of a suspension at all - it would be like they never left," Carter said.
"In essence, someone is accused of an honor offense, they fill out some paperwork, leave for three semesters and come back," he said. "In a lot of ways, this is just a way to remove the single sanction."
Hall said it is likely the Honor Committee will resolve the transfer of credit issue soon. As a result of the retreat, it is now probable Honor will vote on the informed retraction proposal at its meeting this Sunday.
Because the proposal necessitates amendment of the honor constitution, it requires support of two-thirds of the Honor Committee and ratification by the student body.
Hall said the Honor Committee is divided on the issue and it is hard to predict the outcome of the vote.
"The concerns that were brought up [at the retreat] had people revisiting their initial thoughts," Carter said. "I think it's fair to say there are a good number of individuals who are against it, but it's hard to say" what the outcome of Sunday's vote will be, he said.
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