The Organizational Adjudication Committee is on track to begin training members of its student board during the Winter term, students and College officials announced following a meeting Friday. Despite an abrupt announcement on Jan. 12 that the effort would be postponed until Spring term, students involved in forming the board said it should now be ready for operation before the end of Winter term.
The deadline for student applications to serve on the committee has been extended to Jan. 29 with plans to officially implement the OAC board by mid-February, according to David Imamura '10, who chaired the Student Assembly committee that proposed the student board.
The dates were discussed in a meeting on Friday afternoon between students, members of the Assembly and Undergraduate Judicial Affairs.
The extended application deadline will also allow Student Assembly and acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears to select a more diverse board of students that accurately reflects the campus, Will Hix '12, a member of Student Assembly, said.
Students had previously voiced concerns about the need for a balance between Greek and non-Greek students, particularly because the board will deal with minor misconduct involving student organizations, including Greek organizations, as previously reported by The Dartmouth.
"We are interested to get it back on track to deal with the diversity issues and ensure that there will be good results," Hix said.
Student Body President Francis Vernon said the group was able to go forward because of the collaborative effort of Student Assembly members and student organizers. Students stepped up to help with a backlog of logistical work that had previously prevented the OAC initiative from moving forward, she said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The original plan to begin training the board of 50 students on Jan. 13 was delayed due to the "recent activities keeping up the administration's time," Vernon said.
The preparation of a budget reduction proposal for the upcoming Board of Trustees meeting sidetracked administrators from the OAC project, according to Hix.
"There were a lot of things going on and they didn't want to do it in a haphazard manner," Hix said. The College administrators who announced the initial postponement cited administrators' overburdened workloads on a variety of issues, including budget problems and the fire at Phi Delta Alpha fraternity, as reasons for the delay, The Dartmouth previously reported.
"There was a time-management issue for laying out the groundwork and sanctioning guidelines," Imamura said. "There were lots of implementation details that needed to be done, and now, given the last couple of weeks and talks with the judicial office, everything has been back on track."
Hix emphasized that students involved in the implementation of the OAC student board are optimistic about the adjusted timeline.
"We're eager to get it implemented as soon as possible and [to be] as effective as possible," he said. "This is a pilot program so we want to make sure it can be implemented correctly the first time to be used as a model in the future."
