In this week’s Student Government Association (SGA) meeting, Associate Dean of Conduct and Integrity Jennifer Fraley, Assistant Director of Student Conduct and Integrity Sarah Loth and Honor Board Chief Justice Richie McGuire gave a presentation on the potential future of the Conduct Board.
According to Fraley, Conduct Board’s loss of recognition for the fall semester now requires Honor Board to hear all of Conduct Board's cases.
Fraley also said over the past four years, students are more frequently requesting administrative hearings for reasons such as students knowing the members of Conduct Board or feeling more comfortable speaking to professional staff members. The Honor Board made a change at the beginning of the fall semester to do more administrative hearings as a result of this.
As a solution to the problems Honor Board is facing, Fraley said Honor Board envisions a student board being selected through the Office of Conduct and Integrity and has an election process through students, faculty and staff.
Executive Senator for Committee Relations Joshua Darst brought up the idea of changing the election process for Conduct Board, but Fraley and Loth stated changes would need to be made to their constitutions. Loth said the Office of Conduct and Integrity does not have any say over the constitution because the board is controlled by SGA.
Senator Joseph Hyman suggested chosen justices should represent a chair of a certain office for SGA to approve. This allows for more student agreement on the positions, giving SGA final approval.
President Kevin Napier proposed having a Judicial Board rather than both a Conduct Board and Honor Board because of the increase in the number of cases Honor Board has taken.
According to Fraley, the Office of Conduct and Integrity has considered the possibility of another board to look at cases different from those Conduct Board and Honor Board take because what the boards do are not judicial but strictly developmental and part of an administrative process.
During open forum, Black Students Association (BSA) representative Cecil Hayes, discussed how students wish to have Longwood’s music department team up with WMLU to have students’ music played. Hayes also presented the idea of a potential sound engineering class for students who wish to work in sound production in the music industry.
Hyman discussed the problem Longwood students face of having to wait two weeks for help in Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). According to Hyman, other universities do not have the same issue of prolonged waiting time. Hyman proposed one way Longwood could fix the issue is by allocating more money to CAPS for more efficient mental health care.
The next SGA meeting will be Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 3:45 p.m. in the Martinelli Board Room in the Maugans Alumni Center.
