Assault, battery, harassment, theft - for 60 new student members of the Conflict Resolution Board, a nine-hour training session yesterday was a crash course in dealing with these injustices on campus.
The board, which hears cases about students who allegedly have broken the University's Code of Student Conduct, decides about 10 to 15 cases each school year.
"The panel learns that truth is somewhere between where the two sides of the issue stand," said Mary Lou Antieu, coordinator of the conflict resolution board. "So many factors get in the way of our actual perception. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Many people who come before us in our hearing are not purposely lying.
"What the panelists' job is to filter the information and construct a reality."
Each new member who joins the board is required to attend a nine-hour training session, as well as participate in mock hearings. Yesterday's training session examined the distinct skills needed to decide cases that include charges of assault and battery, harassment and theft.
Vice President for Student Affairs Maureen Hartford said that the University acts as a community, and the most effective communities use discipline to handle problems in the fairest ways.
"The elements of the code deal with expectations of the student members of a community," Hartford said. "I am a great believer that the most powerful piece of the code lays out our expectations for the members of the community. It says that harassment and violence against other people on campus is not acceptable."
Hartford said the University's disciplinary process, which includes the Code and the student panelists who hear the cases, was designed to help students learn appropriate ways to act in the University setting.
"It is designed to help students, to help them understand why their actions were unacceptable," Hartford said.
During yesterday's training session, student and faculty members participated in exercises, viewed films and listened to professionals lecture on the purpose of arbitration, diversity, reaching consensus and delivering sanctions. Next week, the panelists will practice their new skills in mock trials.
LSA senior Douglas Yatter said the students' role in the sanctioning process is critical to making the system work.
"Based on my interaction with the coordinators, I think that the student input (on the board) is a very integral part," Yatter said. "Student representatives are important, with such a potential and controversial decision mechanism, to maintain a fair-minded process that involves students."
Assistant Dentistry Prof. Carroll-Ann Trotman said the training session was a successful start in teaching participants the skill they will need to bring into the board.
"They are trying to teach people to gather all the facts and relative information in order to come to a consensus," Trotman said. "We are to see if things can be easily resolved, and it seems like most of the time they can."