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Honor audit commission to begin meeting this summer

Thirteen members will respond to 2016 spring sanctioning vote

<p>The newly created working group will examine the current informed retraction policy. The informed retraction allows students to admit to an honor offense after a charge has been brought against them.&nbsp;</p>

The newly created working group will examine the current informed retraction policy. The informed retraction allows students to admit to an honor offense after a charge has been brought against them. 

An Honor Audit Commission, created by the 2015-16 Honor Committee, will convene for the first time this summer.

Honor Chair Matt West, a third-year College student, said the committee “wanted to create a mechanism to respond to not only the outcome of this spring’s vote on sanctioning, but to the heightened level of debate that’s been ongoing the past three to four years.”

The commission will set its goals for the next year and a half at its first meeting and will work toward these goals until its term concludes in the spring of 2018.

This conclusion will include an audit report that will help the Honor Committee make improvements.

“Everything is open for review,” West said. “[We] hope that the commission will conduct a thorough and comprehensive review.”

The commission will consist of 13 members: two at-large undergraduate students, an at-large graduate student, a Board of Visitors member, the student Board of Visitors member, representatives from the Vice President’s Office of Student Affairs and the Office of the Dean of Students, two faculty members, two alumni representatives, an Honor Committee representative and an Honor support officer.

In addition to the 13 other members, West will serve as an ex-officio, non-voting member of the commission in order to provide input without directly affecting the audit commission’s reports.

The at-large student members will be selected by a five-member selection committee. West will be the only Honor Committee member on the selection committee. West said this allows the Honor Committee to have a small role in the selection committee without gaining too much influence, a philosophy like that applied to Honor’s actual role in the audit commission.

Over the next year and a half, the audit commission will conduct reviews that include student surveys and focus groups to help connect the student body to the Honor Committee.

“We hope that by giving them approximately a year and a half to conduct the review, we can ensure that they have the opportunity to simultaneously review many different elements of the system,” West said.

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