Dear Karen, Danny, and other colleagues interested in the question of faculty service on bodies that hear student judicial cases and their appeals:

Before this discussion goes too far, and think we need a clarification. Once that clarification is made, I believe your concern raises a number of important issues for the faculty----

The needed clarification:  
Are you speaking of the practices of the ?College Judicial Council? or the ?Appeals Committee? which hears appeals of the ?College Judicial Council??    

The line you quote is a description of the ?College Judicial Councils? role in hearing appeals of cases that are heard by a ?minor disciplinary panel or administrator and never reached CJC.    However, I believe your concern is over the make up of the ?Appeals Committee? which hears the appeals from CJC, has no student members and whose membership is not determined by the Committee on Committees.  

The several issues:  
The Appeals Committee does not appear in the Faculty Handbook, and the Committee on Committees does not assign its members annually.  In fact, you will not find the Appeals Committee described in the materials that come from Committee on Committees to go in each year?s Faculty Handbook.  (I have no idea what this means for its status as a committee of the faculty, but...) You will find a description of the Appeals Committee on page 19 of the Facefinder 2007 ? 2008: ?three faculty members who have been former members of the Judicial Council, preferably chair.?  Here it is suggested that once one has been on CJC, one may be called upon to hear appeals of CJC decisions...Hence the appointment for life effect that you complain about below.

I have been concerned for several years about the status of the Appeals Committee.  It is not in the Faculty Handbook among the list of standing faculty committees.  There is no chair; every member is ad hoc relative to each individual appeal.   Called for by the ?Hendrix Student Code of Conduct? found in the Facefinder, but  not appearing among the official committees of the faculty, there is no oversight of the committee and no person identified to do the ?Training? called for annually by the documents in Facefinder, page 19. In practice, faculty make up the committee but Student Affairs and the Dean of Students? Office has worked out our procedures and practices with the advice of whatever faculty members showed enough interest and had the most consistent presence.

I hope you do not mind me using your question, Karen, as an occasion for raising these issues that have long concerned me.  Regardless, we do need to be clear about which committee, CJC or the Appeals Committee is the topic of your concern.

Thank you for listening.

Sincerely,
Peg

On 4/16/08 12:05 PM, 