Courtesy of Sasun Bughdaryan
Recent cases through Connecticut College’s Honor Council have sparked conversations around campus about student grievances with disciplinary measures—from Honor Council verdicts to Residential Life fines and the student handbook, people have thoughts. Though many students agree with the fundamental principles of the student conduct process, such as having other students serve as the Council, and trying to prioritize education above fines or suspensions, they tend to disagree with how well they believe the philosophy behind our conduct process realistically applies.
A Conn community member who has served on Honor Council weighed in on the positive and negative aspects of serving on the Council, and others students’ perceptions of it: “We really try to argue it out, not just go down a list of cases and make decisions… sometimes we’d be there post-midnight because of arguments. It’s like the Supreme Court, in a way, every person is different, but you can usually tell which way people will lean… I’d try my best to convince people, some can be convinced, some just can’t.”
When asked what they thought could change about Honor Council’s process, they responded: “Train their members more, and do a better job differentiating which cases go to Honor Council, and which cases go to Dean’s Grievance. With students battling with addiction, or struggling with their grades, or mental health, or financial problems– I can’t ask the student about that, and we don’t have access to these details, so we can’t holistically hear the cases. We only get the information in the packet.”
“People on the board are trying to help you, and ask helpful questions,” they wanted people to know. “If you say something, it’ll get brought into deliberation– there are [Conduct Process Advocates] there meant to help you prepare. We can’t deviate from the list of punishments in the handbook. Our first resort is never to suspend or give DP1– we always try to give a warning, but we’re tied to the handbook.”
Beyond discontent with the verdicts of their cases, some students have reported a greater dissatisfaction with how the College’s Honor Council process operates. Some students who were interviewed for this article weighed in on their personal experiences, but also shared stories of their friends’ cases, where they perceived that people had been removed from campus jobs unfairly, or given excessive fines for mistakes committed by them, or by administrators or staff– including receiving disciplinary warnings for issues related to disability and accessibility. All in common, though, they had visions for what they’d like the conduct process to feel like moving forward.
One Conn community member who had previously been called to the Honor Council shared their perception of the experience as “having a very accusatory air, like you walk in there, and you have it in your head that they already think you’re guilty.” This student in particular had earlier been interrogated by Campus Safety, where the officers had specifically asked “lots of self-incriminating questions, pushing [them] towards ‘fessing up,’” and when having their case heard, the student perceived that the reports from Campus Safety had misrepresented the incident, to the extent that “as [they] started explaining [themself], [the Honor Council members] got more confused, because something wasn’t adding up.”
A primary grievance that this student had with the conduct process was that, much later, after the case had been decided, “[they] remembered telling the story of the case, and [a student involved with Honor Council] saying, ‘oh, that was you?’, and saying that ‘they used your case as a case study for new Honor Council members.’”
“I’m not the biggest fan of that– the situation was a really stressful night for me, and hearing that it was used as case study,” the student reported, had upset them. “I can assume it was used anonymously– I don’t know if any paperwork or anything said that I was disclosing it, but there was no disclosure or permission or even a heads up to me that the case was being used as a case study.”
When asked what they think could change about the conduct process that would make them feel more comfortable with the system, the student put forth a guiding question: “What is the intention of people coming in here, and going through all this?”
They advocated first for “understanding different types of cases, and handling them in distinctly different ways… many situations aren’t a reflection of character, but a lapse of judgment, or some where the blame is an administrative failure.” Elaborating on how exactly they’d want to see this put into action, they proposed “using Honor Council as a student-oriented space, where the point is conflict resolution, rather than something focused on verdicts or punishments– certain cases lean towards verdicts or punishment, yes, but some should be meant for reflection.”
“The system seems unsustainable,” they added, “with the hours and time required of Honor Council members.” Honor Council meets Wednesday nights, and deliberations are frequently long. The student asked: “After a certain point, do they want to just get things over with quickly?”
Other students had similar ideas for how they’d like to see the Honor Council system change. “To me it’s similar to RAs, where instead of being able to be peer advocates, they’re set up to police– I think that they do try to advocate for students, but they’re not being set up to do it,” one student remarked. “I disagree with any sort of punitive consequences, especially in an educational context… where we should be taught to carry more empathy, and create accountability for ourselves and others.”
Another student chimed in: “I would change how separated it feels from everything, college-culture-wise… making the student handbook review year a more involved process around campus would help, I think, because it should involve all students, since it affects all students.”
What to do instead? The previous student explained: “[Creating accountability] just doesn’t happen through fines, doesn’t happen through assigning costs to a mistake, or just getting off with a warning or threat, or forced community service, or something like alcohol education that people have already done… it’s part of a larger issue with Honor Council, or with SGA, where some students see it as a resume builder rather than a community position, and see the cases as needing to set a precedent, rather than being community processes.” They also advocated for more faculty involvement in the conduct process, especially as advocates. Middlebury College, for example, has a Judicial Board composed both of students and multiple faculty and staff members.
Similarly, a ResLife student staff member gave their thoughts on the handbook’s prescribed punishments and fines: “Some ResLife fines do nothing but penalize mistakes that are easy to make, especially for first years living in dorms for the first time. There’s definitely fears about talking to RAs that create a power dynamic because you’re worried about getting fined if you’re honest.”
The College’s handbook does prefer giving disciplinary warnings before fines or suspensions as punishment, and includes rehabilitative measures such as being sent to the ARC for academic dishonesty, or alcohol education for underage or dangerous drinking habits. The Handbook states that the conduct process is meant to “[approach] violations from an educational perspective…[and encourage] personal responsibility and accountability, always being mindful of an individual’s or group’s impact on the community.” Most verdicts include an “accountability plan,” which includes a sanction ranging from a disciplinary warning to expulsion, and other levels of restitution.
Other colleges also steer away from fines or suspensions— Middlebury College, as mentioned above, explains their disciplinary hearings as having “their fundamental goal as education, rather than criminal punishment or compensation.” The New School’s student conduct process gave the example of restitution for cases involving property damage or related acts, but emphasized educational projects as a solution, meaning “a program which may include alcohol and drug education, research/reflection assignments, action plans, referrals to campus resources or offices, or other assignments intended to help students evaluate their behavior choice and understand community expectations.”
