An Organizational Adjudication Committee student board will be formed by Winter term to hear allegations of minor misconduct involving student organizations, acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears said in an interview with The Dartmouth on Friday. The full OAC, which includes students, faculty and administrators, will still convene for serious matters, including cases in which organizations may be removed from campus or face more than one term of probation, she said.
Spears' announcement comes after a series of controversial OAC decisions last winter that resulted in lengthy probations for several Greek organizations.
"I have faith in students, when well trained, to take on this task to really seriously deliberate and to identify appropriate sanctions that will lead to changed behavior and greater success for student organizations as they move forward," Spears said.
The student board will include 50 students. Five students will hear each case, according to April Thompson, director of Undergraduate Judicial Affairs. The students will recommend sanctions to OAC chair Nathan Miller, assistant director of Judicial Affairs.
"If the chair disagrees with the committee, the committee will work with the chair, just like in the [Committee on Standards], to come to a resolution," Thompson said.
To increase the OAC hearing process' transparency, the five-student committees will meet every Wednesday afternoon in a designated room in the Collis Center, Thompson said. Organizations will have the option of an open hearing, which the organization's members or the wider community can attend, she said.
The student board will only hear allegations involving minor misconduct, Thompson said. "Minor cases involve everything from not returning a keg on time to serving underage students, mismanaging parties the things that you see most often," Thompson said, adding later, "We refer any case that involves violence, physical harm to a community member, sexual abuse or hazing, those kinds of serious issues, those always go to the full committee process."
For the first time since OAC's formation, disciplinary action for Social Event Management Procedure violations will not necessarily involve social probation, Thompson said.
David Imamura '10, who chaired the Student Assembly committee that proposed the student board, cited students' complaints that OAC sanctions were irregular and non-transparent as part of the impetus in the Assembly's decision to begin discussing reform.
"This all started in the Winter when [Sigma Delta sorority] and [Delta Delta Delta sorority] in particular went on probation," Imamura said. "It continued when a lot of organizations were questioning the transparency of the system. They were getting these sanctions, and they had no idea why they were getting what they felt were uneven sanctions."
Thompson said she hopes the creation of the student board will improve the OAC hearing process' "transparency and student involvement."
"Right now, students have no voice in the outcomes of the process," Thompson said.
The student board could also help effect change within Dartmouth's social culture, Thompson said.
"I hope it does change some of the behavior, in that it gets more students the help they need earlier, and organizations feel a little more responsibility to their own community, because the students who are serving on the committee are the same students who go to parties and are out and about at night," Thompson said.
Student Body President Frances Vernon '10, who pushed for the creation of an OAC student board in her presidential campaign, and Inter-Fraternity Council President Zachary Gottlieb '10 both said they hope the student board will collaborate with the College's recently formed SEMP review committee to examine the College's alcohol policies and campus culture.
Gottlieb is a staff columnist for The Dartmouth.
"I think that as long as we can perfect where we need to, refine where needed, we will see positive change," Vernon said. "Hopefully, this committee will work closely and have some meetings in the future with the SEMP group. There's a lot to look forward to."
The student board members will represent the "breadth and depth" of the student body, Thompson said. The Assembly will elect 25 applicants from the sophomore, junior and senior classes, she said. Spears will then choose 25 students from the remaining applicants, Thompson said.
OAC student board members will participate in a three-hour training program. Students will start to develop a set of sanctioned guidelines during the training, Thompson said. The training process will be modeled on the training for student representatives of the COS, Thompson said.
"While every single case is different, and every case will be treated differently, I think the students themselves need to be the people talking at the beginning about what should be the response from the College to certain behaviors," Thompson said.
While the majority of cases before the OAC involve Greek organizations, Thompson said, the student board will hear cases involving any College-recognized organization, including sports teams and groups funded by the Council on Student Organizations.
"Most of the cases we see do come from Greek organizations, but it's more because of the facility," Thompson said. "When you own a facility, there's a certain level of responsibility that comes along with owning that facility."
The student board will undergo a two-term pilot process, Spears said.
"It's going to function as if it is fully empowered to do its work with all responsibility and accountability," Spears said. "At the end of Spring term, we're going to examine things that worked well, didn't work well, we need to improve, to change. And then we'll make a decision about whether or not this becomes a permanent structure. It is my hope that it will."
The Assembly committee that proposed the student board, the Organizational Adjudication Committee Review Commission, included representatives from Student Assembly, Greek organizations, the Student Athletic Advisory Committee and Undergraduate Judicial Affairs, Imamura said.
The commission submitted its proposal to Spears during Summer term, and Spears said she was "convinced in early September" that the implementation of a student board was "an important thing to do." Spears said she did not announce the board's creation until after talking with a large number of students and various faculty committees.
"Students from a variety of communities have clearly articulated that this is a really important issue," Spears said. "They think that the possibility exists to create longer-term change, and they truly believe this is the best mechanism to try it out."
Imamura said he and the commission members are "extremely pleased" that the administration adopted the commission's proposal so quickly.
