Fourth-year College student Allison McVey completed her term as University Judiciary Committee chair Wednesday after serving in the position since April 1, 2025. During her term, 31 cases were adjudicated, and she also worked to establish the policies and projects subcommittee and engage alumni.
The UJC is a student-run judiciary body that investigates and adjudicates cases involving the 12 Standards of Conduct. McVey began working with the UJC as a first-year student on the First-Year Judiciary Committee, then served as UJC representative for the College of Arts and Sciences and chair of the hazing response subcommittee as a second-year student. As a third-year student, McVey served another year as College representative in addition to serving as vice chair for sanctions. McVey then ran for chair in the spring of her third year.
At the start of her term, McVey said she hoped to accomplish several goals throughout her time as chair, including outreach initiatives for increased student agency, increased collaboration with UJC educators, close work with Inter-Fraternity and Inter-Sorority Council leaders and a reduced case processing time.
To work towards her goal of increasing student agency, McVey said the events of the annual Judiciary Week that took place March 9 to March 13 were planned with this initiative in mind. The informative Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act workshop in partnership with Student Legal Services, McVey said, is an example of how the UJC helps students learn how to advocate for themselves.
“Coming in [to my term], I was excited to have outreach initiatives and educational initiatives that were specifically focused on enhancing student agency and ensuring that students are their own primary advocates and are fully aware of all of their rights as students,” McVey said. “I think that is very much what [the workshop] was in the spirit of.”
During her term, McVey said she was able to increase collaboration with UJC educators — support officers who aim to inform the University community of the 12 Standards of Conduct and promote the UJC as a community resource — by establishing a new responsibility for them. With the accused student’s consent, educators now serve as observers in trials to ensure the trial is following standard procedure.
“The educators have kind of stepped into this new role of serving as [a] sort of internal quality control,” McVey said. “[They] make observations that can be used for internal improvement … the educator pool has really been harnessed in a new, unorthodox way, that I think is very helpful to the committee and ultimately makes it better.”
As for her progress on increasing collaboration with IFC and ISC leaders, McVey said that this initial goal did not dominate her term as much as she anticipated. According to McVey, she did not oversee any Greek life or organizational cases during her term, as opposed to her predecessor, who adjudicated many cases involving Greek life organizations.
“For that reason, those conversations [with IFC and ISC leaders] kind of became less pertinent, as the committee really had to refocus its case-processing intentions on the myriad of individual cases that were coming in,” McVey said. “Those Greek life cases that used to dominate a pretty sizable portion of our case docket kind of just took a backseat.”
McVey said she hoped that IFC and ISC interactions with UJC during previous terms developed a new relationship between Greek organizations and the UJC, one of increased mutual understanding and natural compliance.
Regarding McVey’s goal to decrease case processing time — which inflated from 35.17 days to 92.09 days during Jones’ term between the Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 semester — McVey said that according to Saxon Kelleher, outgoing UJC senior data manager and second-year College student, the mean case processing time during McVey’s term was 125 days, or 103 days excluding statistical outliers.
Case processing time is also heavily influenced by any accompanying criminal cases, McVey said. She noted the increase during her term could be attributed to the fact that UJC-produced records can be subpoenaed in criminal courts, causing students to potentially delay their UJC cases until their criminal case has been resolved.
For students simultaneously navigating criminal court cases, McVey said she mainly hoped to reduce the strain of waiting periods of time for disciplinary decisions from the UJC. According to McVey, another reason for having UJC educators serve as trial observers is to streamline the decision-making process.
“[The case processing time] a big reason why we have the educator[s] serving as kind of our internal auditors, to make sure [case processing is] being done as efficiently as possible and to identify the kinds of issues that generate time lags and how they can be addressed,” McVey said.
McVey also shared two goals with her predecessor — establishing an alternative mediation process and continuing to grow UJC’s endowment. The alternative mediation process would provide an opportunity for students or organizations to informally resolve incidents that do not rise to the level of a standards violation.
McVey said she created the policies and projects subcommittee during her term so they could maintain and upkeep the UJC constitution and bylaws. She said she also wants that subcommittee to assist in the development of the alternative mediation process, which would provide a framework for managing cases so they do not always rise to a full trial. The alternative mediation process was also a goal of her past two predecessors and has not yet been fully achieved, McVey said, so the subcommittee is still creating the framework to build upon.
“The policies and projects subcommittee has definitely been a great addition to the [UJC and] is one of our most robust subcommittees,” McVey said. “[This subcommittee] has undertaken this effort of looking into what an alternative mediation process would look like.”
According to McVey, the leaders of the policies and projects subcommittee recently presented to the Executive Committee their progress on developing a prototype for the alternative process. McVey said she believes the proposal positions the next Executive Committee to consider, adjust and ultimately implement bylaws that would establish the alternative mediation process as a part of the UJC’s work.
“That was my hope for the year, to get [the alternative mediation process] to a place where [it] was less of an abstract idea and more of a concrete proposal that the next [Executive Committee] could then hopefully carry into actual implementation,” McVey said.
As for growing the endowment to supplement funding from Student Affairs, McVey said the endowment and alumni relations subcommittee — created by Jones — is continuing its efforts in engaging UJC alumni.
“Growing out an endowment is a very big and longitudinal project … in my term, we’ve been more focused on building the alumni relationships that would then potentially, down the road, facilitate the growth of the endowment,” McVey said.
The UJC celebrated its 70th anniversary during McVey’s term, and the Oct. 18 celebration was a testament to the UJC bolstering relationships with its alumni and potential giving opportunities, according to McVey.
“[The celebration] was a really great step in the right direction in terms of fostering an environment where the UJC’s alumni are engaged with [the UJC] and do feel like they can come back and have an open dialogue in a relationship with the UJC,” McVey said. “Because this is such a new initiative, we are still in the relationship cultivation stage and really building [up] a foundation of alumni involvement.”
McVey also emphasized the importance of the alumni newsletter, which the endowment and alumni relations subcommittee began publishing during her term, and hopes it will continue to be an initiative of future subcommittee chairs. McVey said the newsletter is published once or twice a year.
Zach Davidson, McVey’s successor as chair and third-year College student, previously held the co-chair position of the endowment and alumni relations subcommittee. McVey said that she is excited to see how Davidson will use his experience with the subcommittee to continue to grow the endowment during his term.
Reflecting on her overarching goal to provide a space for UJC members to complete their best work, McVey said she made a point to emphasize the role of subcommittees throughout her term and support them in functioning at the highest level possible.
“We’ve had internal conversations continually about how to really make these subcommittees robust sites of idea cultivation and contribution to the UJC’s broader mission,” McVey said. “I think … I’ve done that well, especially with respect to the newer subcommittees, like the policies and projects subcommittee, and I’ve been really happy with the work that they’ve done.”
McVey said that as a leader, she wanted to invite UJC members to excel in their roles and provide them a platform to work on initiatives that excited them. At general body meetings and other UJC gatherings, McVey said she emphasized her appreciation for UJC members and recognized their work when possible.
McVey described her immediate emotions following the end of her term as “bittersweet,” along with feelings of nostalgia and sentimentality. McVey said she felt “lucky” to have been involved with the UJC for the past four years.
“It’s really nice to reflect on the past year and think about all that the committee has accomplished,” McVey said. “[The UJC] is something that has kind of defined my college experience … it’s going to be a bit strange to not have it be [at] the top of my mind all the time.”
As for the next generation of UJC leadership, McVey said she foresees that the incoming Executive Committee will continue to carry out UJC traditions with dedication and hopes that the next UJC leaders will continue to develop and strengthen the UJC community.
“Our work, as a committee, is more difficult and complex than it has ever been before, and I think that necessitates both procedural precision and attention to detail and commitment to the more substantive aspects of the cause,” McVey said. “[This] requires that we ensure that our members have the stamina and the drive to do the really difficult work.”
McVey said that she believes all UJC members continuing to serve are taking on an important role in the current higher education setting.
“It’s very interesting that issues of national concern actually do very intimately affect the work on the ground by bodies like the UJC,” McVey said. “I think that interplay is going to be very prevalent in the next term as well.”
Davidson officially replaced McVey as UJC chair Wednesday.
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