'U,' MSA examine Code implementation

In January - three years after the University Board of Regents adopted the Code of Student Conduct - the board will be handed a report detailing how well the procedures of the University-wide policy are working.

The Code is the University's internal disciplinary system, based on a set of values - including dignity, diversity, safety and honesty - the University enforces to create a scholarly environment.

Students can be disciplined under the Code for any number of violations, such as physically and sexually harming another person, misusing alcohol and other drugs or tampering with University property.

They can receive sanctions ranging from educational projects to expulsion, although fewer than 15 students have been suspended or expelled under the Code. It is intended to be educational in nature and less legalistic than state or federal statues, Vice President for Student Affairs Maureen Hartford said.

The Code was drafted out of the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities, which served as a temporary discipline policy from 1993-96.

"The regents asked us to come up with a code that was more simple and less legalistic," Hartford said. That was the task of the 1995 all-student committee that drafted what would later become the Code, she said.

Sean Esteban McCabe, who now heads the Office of Student Conflict Resolution that oversees the Code, was one of eight students who drafted the Code.

"It was a complete redrafting," McCabe said. "The intent was to define standards for our community based on shared values."

The student drafting committee forwarded its policy to Hartford, who modified it and handed it over to the regents, who approved it and enacted the new policy in January 1996.

Since then, the University has processed more than 150 Code cases consisting of 450 alleged violations.

The two most common types of alleged violations fall under the categories of "stealing, vandalizing, damaging, destroying or defacing University property or the property of others" and "physically harming another person including acts such as killing, assaulting or battering."

Code review

When the regents adopted the Code in January 1996, they scheduled the 1998 review.

The Office of Student Conflict Resolution staff completed the first part of the three-phase review in May. During the first phase, the office's staff evaluated the effectiveness of the Code process.

For the second part of the review, Hartford commissioned a nine-person group of administrators, faculty members and students to perform a University-wide review of the Code process.

The Code Implementation Review Committee, which is chaired by Career Planning and Placement Director Simone Himbeault Taylor, has been working since summer to compile data and put together its report, which is due to Hartford by the end of October.

"It is going to provide a snapshot of the University opinion that we were able to garner," Taylor said.

To grasp those varied opinions, the committee facilitated focus groups of administrators, faculty and students. During the focus sessions, people could comment anonymously on the implementation of the Code.

Reviewers targeted groups of random students through telephone surveys in the second phase. They also sent letters to students who had been accused of violating the Code, asking them how they thought the Code process worked.

During the Code review panel's weekly meetings, Taylor said, its members leave their personal feelings at the door.

"We are making every effort to make it very objective," she said. "It does not reflect our point of view."

The third phase of the Code review process will begin in November and consist of an outside analysis by consultants from peer universities.

Hartford said she has asked one representative from Northwestern University, Dartmouth University and the University of Virginia to serve as review consultants.

The team of consultants will have access to all of the material from the first two parts of the review process. It will be able to interview members of the University community to come up with a comprehensive report on the effectiveness of the Code's implementation process.

Finally, Hartford will compile all three reports into one to present to the regents at the board's first 1999 meeting. The regents will use the report as an informational tool to decide whether to change the Code.

Hartford said she has been removed from the actual work of the review groups, so she said she doesn't know what will end up on the regent's table, although the final report will included information gathered during the three review stages, such as University opinions and research.

"I expect that there will be recommendations for some change" of the Code process, Hartford said.

The regents must approve all Code changes. The Michigan Student Assembly, the faculty's governing body called the Senate Assembly and University administrators can propose amendments to the board for consideration.

MSA already has its own Code review in the works.

?? chair Olga Savic, a Public Policy second year graduate student who serves on both the MSA review committee and the official University group, said the students' review, lead by assembly members, aims look at the content of the Code in addition to how it is implemented.

It is not enough to ask how well the Code is being implemented when some students don't even know what the Code is, Savic said.

"What we want to do is a little bit more fundamental," she said.

Starting this week, members of this group plan to attend campus organization meetings to encourage students to take a critical look at the Code and become involved in the review process.

"We don't want to present anything from a one-sided perspective because there are so many ideas out about" the Code, Savic said, adding that MSA wants to hand the regents a report it can say truly represents University students opinions about the Code.

Assembly members plan to give their report to the regents at the board's December meeting, Savic said.

Students who want more information about the Code or how the process works can contact the Office of Student Conflict Resolution at 936-6308 or on the Web at, http://umich.edu/~oscr. Public records of Code cases can be viewed in the office upon request.

As the Code comes under review this semester, the Daily plans to bring the campus

complete coverage.

This is the first of many articles that will appear in the Daily examining the Code's

effectiveness and legality.

Look at how the current Code differs from past University

conduct policies in the Friday Focus on Oct. 16.

See here for the complete text of the Code

10-12-98