The Honor Committee met Sunday for its final meeting of the 2025-26 academic year to discuss a recommendation of how to handle student unresponsiveness after students are notified of an alleged violation of the University’s honor code.
The recommendation was originally presented in a send-off letter from Seamus Oliver, former chair of the policies and procedures subcommittee and fourth-year College student, with ideas of proposed changes for the current term. The Committee primarily discussed the issue of unresponsiveness when students receive an initial notice of an alleged violation.
According to the Committee’s bylaws, once a report has been received by the Committee and an advisor has been assigned, the accused student will be provided written notice as soon as reasonably possible at the discretion of the vice chair for investigations.
Jessica Drennan, vice chair for sanctions and third-year Batten student, explained that, currently, a student’s responsiveness is not considered an aggravating factor for the panel for sanctions.
“[This is] not because it can’t be [considered], but simply because there’s nobody who has the motivation, the ability and the knowledge, all three of those things together to bring that up in front of the [panel for sanctions],” Drennan said.
Drennan said the proposed solution would be for the vice chair for investigations or an individual in the case to act in an impartial role and present documentation to the Committee advisors that would display the student's unresponsiveness.
Drennan noted, however, that counsels and advisors are aware of a students’ unresponsiveness, but emphasized that their role is “to act in the best interest of the students” throughout case procedures, so they likely would not mention a student’s unresponsiveness to the panel. She added that the proposed solution is not intended to be punitive towards unresponsive students, but rather to address fairness for students who do respond to violation notices.
“[The responsive students] have made a good faith effort,” Drennan said. “Their case would now get considered in a similar way as this person who has given an incredibly hard time.”
Annie Linley, vice chair for investigations and third-year College student, explained how, in her role, she uses the case thread — an internal record maintained before the informed retraction decision — to track certain developments in a specific case. Linley outlined how the process of scheduling meetings with a student and corresponding Committee members requires a lot of communication between her and support officers.
“It’s a pretty loose process in the sense that we don’t have deadlines built into the bylaws about things like when you need to respond to an email from your advisor,” Linley said. “So it’s mostly based [on] if repeated attempts over a long period [remain unresponded to].”
Genny Freed, Committee chair and third-year College student, discussed the selections and recruitment subcommittee’s plans for the recruitment cycle in the fall semester. The Executive Committee will table at the Student Activities Fair for prospective students interested in joining the Committee. The subcommittee oversees the process of selecting and recruiting new support officers, including the application, interview and final decision-making stages.
The Committee will continue to meet monthly via Zoom over the summer. Anyone interested in attending a meeting during the summer must request link access from the Committee chair. The current scheduled dates for the meetings are May 31, June 28 and July 26 at 7 p.m.
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