Last night, members of the Honor Committee focused on two main issues, recruitment efforts for committee tryouts and last week's open committee meeting that was geared toward first-year students.
The Committee recently began tryouts to fill the advisor, counsel and educator pools. Tests measuring students' knowledge of the system and its procedures were administered last week. The Committee plans to move into the interview portion of the recruitment process soon as the first round of interviews will be held beginning Tuesday. At last night's meeting, committee chairs noted the process so far was marked by successful recruitment rates and high test scores.
"The education board had great turnout rates," Vice Chair for Education Allie Moore said.
Vice Chair for Trials Brian O'Neill added that he was impressed with the quality of responses on the tests.
"I was frankly surprised by how well people did on the tests," O'Neill said. "Frankly, I had people grade fairly hard on the short answer ... It looks to be a very good year in terms of recruitment."
The Committee also reviewed last week's open Committee meeting geared toward first-year students. The meeting had a turnout of eight first-year students, but many members said they thought the meeting was successful in terms of the discussion that was generated.
"The turnout was a good size for having the discussion that we had," said Josh Hess, vice chair for community relations. "It makes sense to focus on discrete segments of the [University] population."
Hess noted that changes in advertising techniques would not have led to a greater turnout.
"I don't think that there were any significant shortcomings in our advertising," Hess said. "That kind of turnout is the best that we can do."
Committee Chair Ben Cooper suggested holding another open committee meeting geared toward students in the Law School and Darden School.
Moore also brought up a recent change regarding education efforts.
Educators are currently interviewing teaching assistants regarding their knowledge of the Committee, while in the past University professors' knowledge of the system was tested. Moore said the switch was made because "they're the ones that report the cases." Educators ask teaching assistants a variety of questions including how familiar they are with the Committee and whether they feel connected to the system. Moore said she is still unsure as to what will be done with the information gathered.
"In the past nothing's been done with that information," Moore said. "We're trying to change that [and] trying to revamp the program."
Moore noted the possibility of using the information in some sort of public relations campaign.
"The possibilities are endless," Moore said.
The Committee also discussed a planned collaboration with Sustained Dialogue in which Honor members participate in Sustained Dialogue discussions to hear different groups' perspectives about the Committee.
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