Honor Council Minutes

October 29, 2000

“Come get your ass grabbed . . . .No, No Ben, No.” - Lucy

“If you’re sleeping with any of your professors, tell them to come to the next mock trial.” - Ethan

“Spaghetti Warehouse? . . . .That’s a lot of spaghetti.” - Andrew

Present: Ben Huebner (secretary), Randy Ko, Lucy Lyon (co-chair), Sarah Waring, Caitlin Costello, Jenn Louie (co-chair), Tyson Oberndorfer, Ari Worthman, Hannah Dickinson, Celeste Moore, Ethan Sorrelgreen, Amelia Winchester, Andrew Peterson, Gayathri Ramabadran , Elizabeth Sullivan, Rachel Werner

Visitors: Nihad Rahman

I. Moment of Silence.

II. Committees - Since this was our first meeting since early October, all the point-people gave a quick update on their work thus far this semester. Caitlin noted that JSAAP has yet to meet, which Lucy told Council was due to the fact that JSAAP was still trying to field class representatives. Hannah informed us that the Community Outreach committee is working on putting together a discussion on the Multicultural Juror List. Lucy said that the SFP Committee should be meeting next week. According to Ethan, the Faculty Relations Committee has sent a letter to the faculty concerning setting up a faculty sounding board committee for Council. Although a few good responses were received, most of the faculty has yet to respond to the letter. Ari said that the Council Breaking the Code Committee met before break and will be meeting again soon. The committee is considering bringing Plenary resolutions next semester to address the conflict of interest problems that occur when an Honor Council member breaks the Code and is brought to trial. One option is to play with the jury compilation, substituting more random jurors for Honor Council members on trials. The committee will continue to work on options, but would like any suggestions that community members could bring.

III. Mock Trial - When your Secretary, you get to make your own category for your comments. Ben told Council that the Mock Trial Committee had met since break and was ready to put on the first mock trials of the semester. Ever wondered what the hell Honor Council does anyway? Want to change the way the Honor Code works, but not sure about the process as it stands now? Want to build your HCO resume? The mock trial will be open to any student or faculty member who wishes to sit on a jury and decide on a mock case. The mock trials will be on:

Wednesday November 1st at 9 PM and Monday November 6th at 4 PM

Interested? E-mail Ben at bhuebner.

IV. Random Acts of Honor Council - Despite our reputation as slackers, Honor Council had a whole bunch of events since our last meeting. Amelia, Jenn, and Rachel went to the UPenn Academic Integrity Day last Tuesday. Amelia commented that it was interesting to hear about the differences between both schools’ approach to academic integrity and the different standards that students feel that they are held to at those schools. Jenn added that they went to a discussion about the ethical implications of Napster, which also touched on the subjects of papers online etc. She thought it might be interesting how people at Haverford applied the Honor Code to such “real world” things as Napster. Hannah agreed, and added it to the list of discussions to be held by the Community Outreach Committee.

Honor Council also met with Dean Tolliver and Marilou Allen right before the end of break. Among items discussed: the relationship between the Administration and Honor Council, alternatives to separation that would meet the faculty’s wishes concerning upholding academic integrity, and why ordering out for Chinese food makes all of our meetings seem so much better. A number of Council members found the discussions to be very positive and we hope to have another one in November. Honor Council also held the infamous HC Retreat before break. Along with the usual debauchery, Dean Tolbert helped Honor Council out with some diversity training and all of Council did the mock trial. Ari commented that he thought the diversity training was good, but that there needed to be more of an emphasis on applying it to Haverford situations. He also thought that mediation/facilitation training would be helpful. Which brings us to . .. .

V. Mediation Training - Jenn told Ari that the reason mediation training wasn’t included this year was that the Office of Multicultural Affairs was bringing in mediation trainers on November 9th and 12th. These trainings are open to any member of the community. Lucy and Jenn hoped that this training would jumpstart Haverford’s essentially defunct Communications Outreach (peer mediation) group. Anyone interested in being trained in mediation should contact Evelyn Laurent-Perrault (elaurent) at the OMA.

VI. Episcopal Academy - Jenn and Ben are going to be going to Episcopal Academy on Thursday to give the little whipper-snappers a talking to about academic integrity and college. Any HCOs who would be interested in helping us out would be much appreciated, e-mail jlouie or bhuebner.

VII. Slim Shady - Our guest Nihad had a question for us. He wondered if listening to Eminem was a violation of the Honor Code, given the content matter. Both Lucy and Jenn answered that it was not, though if one was confronted by someone who felt that they were being “subjected” to this music because it was too loud, under the Honor Code you should probably lower the volume.

VII. Confidential Portion, Moment of Silence

Yea, yea, yea, I know, really boring minutes. Hey, what can I say, it’s hard to make snide comments about random committee reports. Speaking of which, the above random committee reports do not necessarily represent the views of the Administration, the College, or your Mom. Wow, I’ve sunk to jokes about your mom. New low.

Oh, and let’s all give a shout out to Rebecca Kanthor. You owe me, babe.