The University Judiciary Committee has adjudicated three cases and has 11 pending cases on the docket as the first month of the spring semester comes to an end. Aside from cases, the UJC is also preparing to host its third annual Judiciary Week set to take place mid-March.
The UJC is a student-run judiciary body that investigates and adjudicates cases involving the 12 Standards of Conduct.
According to Allison McVey, UJC Chair and fourth-year College student, frequent violations of Standard 10 — any violation of federal, state or local law — is a trend she has observed throughout her year-long term, which will end April 1. McVey says students violating Standard 10 are often also involved with court proceedings, creating a unique, case-by-case question of if the UJC should adjudicate in conjunction with the court system or not.
This semester also marks the end of the training process for new support members, who applied to and joined the UJC in the Fall semester. According to McVey, new members first shadow a case under the guidance of experienced members, and after doing so, they become official counselors, investigators and educators.
“It’s very heartening. After [the new members] put so much work in over the course of the semester, and once they transition into being more independent, it really increases our ability to handle this large caseload,” McVey said.
The UJC will also be holding its third annual Judiciary Week, or J-week, with one to two events each day from March 9 to March 13 for students to learn more about the Committee, according to Taryn Tuttle, UJC Senior Educator and Batten Graduate student and fourth-year College student. Last year, J-week events included a tab at Bodo’s Bagels, tabling on the South Lawn and a town hall with UJC executive members.
“[The events] will all be ways for students to directly engage with members of the UJC,” Tuttle said. “It’s a wonderful way for all members of the UJC to get involved with our outreach, not just my pool [of educators].”
McVey provided an update on UJC’s endowment — a fund that the previous UJC Chair Harper Jones pushed for — which launched last semester. McVey said that the endowment is currently aimed towards more long-term initiatives focused on UJC growth rather than day-to-day and expected expenses. Funding for J-week has already been accounted for in the UJC budget, allocated by the University’s Student Affairs Office. The UJC also has an alumni engagement and endowment subcommittee that manages the alumni network and fundraising.
“Our alumni and endowment subcommittee has been doing a lot of work with both the endowment and alumni relations, and I know they’re planning a couple of initiatives for the spring semester,” McVey said. “They would like to conduct more outreach to alumni.”
The UJC celebrated its 70th anniversary Oct. 18, and after the celebration, attendees of the event were given the opportunity to contribute to the endowment fund. McVey said that throughout the rest of the semester, the UJC will be focused more on community engagement.
“I don’t think we’re planning anything that large-scale in terms of events that are [alumni-focused this semester], but we definitely want to increase the engagement with an eye toward eventually building up our endowment,” McVey said.
McVey also said that the endowment subcommittee is working with the Fourth-Year Giving program to ensure that the UJC endowment is an option for fourth-year students to give back to the University.
Elections for new representatives — who are elected from the 13 undergraduate and graduate schools of the University and serve as judges during UJC trials — will take place in February. The new representatives, from which Executive Committee members are elected, will begin their one-year terms April 1.
Looking to the upcoming semester, McVey hopes the Committee can continue to successfully handle their growing caseload, both in number and complexity, while members transition into new roles.
“I think the spring semester is just a transitionary time,” McVey said. “One of the things that I’m most proud of [from last semester] is that we created spaces for our members to come together and to find a connection in that process [of handling difficult cases] … I would really like to carry that into the spring semester.”
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