The University Judiciary Committee will end the semester after making several changes to case processing procedure, offering new education initiatives and achieving racial parity with the student body for the second year in a row.
UJC's most vigorous effort has involved cutting delays for trials to ensure that cases are handled within an appropriate amount of time after they are filed.
UJC Chair Will Bane said although the time-table modifications are internal in nature and not immediately obvious to the student body, there have been significant decreases in case processing time.\n"It does have a great effect for the accused students who go through our system who are having their cases tried two or three weeks after an offense occurs as opposed to two or three months after the offense occurs," Bane said.
Trial statistics will be released in March, which will allow UJC and the student body to examine exactly how the case processing procedure has been affected.
Vice Chair for Trials Halley Epstein said her focus has been on accountability in scheduling, which begins with consulting both parties to determine a convenient trial date. This also includes expecting support officers and judges to commit to a trial and make it a priority.
"So far we have been able to stick to our case processing goals and ensure that students have their trials processed in an acceptable amount of time," Epstein said.
UJC has also focused heavily on education this semester. Senior Educator Victoria Marchetti helped to plan a different educational initiative each month, beginning with its traditional dormitory talks in August, in which UJC educators visit the mandatory first-year dormitory meetings to educate students about the purpose of UJC and the Standards of Conduct. This year, educators became the official liaisons for their assigned dormitories.
Because first-year students were identified as a community that would benefit from additional outreach efforts, the program began even before classes started. It will conclude this week, as UJC educators meet with resident advisers and senior residents for first-year housing.
"We really wanted to start a discussion, and to get the RAs' opinion on how UJC can further reach the first-years and better ways that we can communicate across Grounds," Marchetti said. "Through the dorm talks initiatives, we are getting useful information to further our educational initiatives."
The October flyer campaign also was intended to help clarify UJC's purpose. A special flyer was created and distributed to differentiate explicitly between UJC and the Honor Committee, a distinction that has been confusing for many in the past, Marchetti said.
Bane announced that the committee was proud to achieve perfect racial parity with the student body for the second year in a row. He cited increased minority recruitment efforts as the main reason the UJC continues to reflect student demographics.
Marchetti also cited the recent translation of the Standards of Conduct into Spanish and Mandarin Chinese as a point of pride, adding that UJC plans to expand to other languages in the coming semesters.
"We think this will be a great way for international students to better understand the UJC and ensure that language is not a barrier to knowing the policies and procedures of the UJC," Marchetti said.\nUJC will sponsor UJC Awareness Day next semester and will continue its goal of having one educational initiative per month.
"We continue to look for key issues. We are busy, but we are also focusing on areas in which we haven't worked," Bane said.
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