Last night, the Honor Committee continued its ongoing discussion about a re-examination and possible amendment of its current Semester at Sea processes.
The meeting began with community concerns from Brent Routman, father of Allison Routman, who was dismissed from the summer 2008 Semester at Sea voyage after being accused of plagiarizing a movie synopsis for a paper.
Though Mr. Routman addressed many concerns about his daughter's experience aboard the ship, he stressed that many of the students participating in the program are not University students, and therefore have a different understanding of what constitutes an honor offense. In the past, the Committee has sought to address this issue by ensuring that students are formally educated about the Committee's policies and procedures in the Voyager's Handbook, which is given to all students enrolled in Semester at Sea and contains the rules governing the application of honor policies during the program.
To address the concern that the program and University are two distinct communities, the Committee reviewed a new proposal, presented by Graduate School representatives Alexander Cohen and Edward Lee, and continued to discuss an older proposal, presented to the Committee by Chair David Truetzel. Both possible changes would give students convicted of an honor offense aboard the ship the opportunity for another honor trial at the University.
Under the Committee's current Semester at Sea policy, if a student is found guilty of an academic honor offense, he is expelled from the program and expelled from the University if he is enrolled at the University as a student. If the expelled student is a non-University student, he is barred from applying to the University in the future. The honor investigation and trial aboard the ship is investigated by the registrar and University officials, and students aboard the ship serve on the jury except for in rare circumstances.
Under Cohen and Lee's proposal, any University student accused of an honor offense aboard the ship would be automatically alerted to the Committee in Charlottesville, and two separate trials would be held - one by the Semester at Sea program, and one by the Committee at the University. For a non-University student, he or she would only go through the process aboard the ship and would be allowed to apply to the University later, even if found guilty.
Under Truetzel's proposal, if a University or non-University student is found guilty of an honor offense on the ship, then he or she has 30 days to "request additional proceedings with the Honor Committee" in Charlottesville to re-investigate the case. If the Committee in Charlottesville finds that an honor offense did not occur and drops the case before it makes its way to a second trial or the student is found not guilty during a second trial, then he or she is readmitted back to the University and/or allowed to apply to the University in the future.
"I think they're both pretty good proposals," Cohen said, noting that both proposals provide University students with the opportunity to be dismissed only by University students. Under the current system, it is possible that non-University students - perhaps thought of as being less familiar with the honor code - could serve as jurors and be charged with the code's application.
But, Cohen added that he believes his proposal is "very faithful to the principle of single sanction" because each community - either the Semester at Sea community or the University - gets to decide whether a student is "worthy to be a part of" that particular community, to a greater degree than Truetzel's.
"I don't want Harvard students kicking people out of U.Va. [or have] Harvard students telling people that they can never apply to U.Va.," Cohen said.
Cohen also noted, however, that he recognizes certain weaknesses in his proposal, such as the fact that a student may feel added stress or strain about having to go through two separate honor trials, a concern other committee members addressed as well. Cohen also said that he plans to change his proposal so that University students' trials at the University do not take place until after they have returned to Charlottesville from the voyage.
Truetzel said one of the benefits of his proposal is that it brings the punishments into line with the level of due process being administered for both University and non-University students aboard the ship.
"We're trying to give a process that we think is fair," Truetzel said. "Everybody gets the same options throughout the entire process."
Either proposal is better than the current policy, Cohen said. The committee voted not to vote on the amendments at this time, however, and discussion about them will continue next week.
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