The Honor Committee presented assessments on transformation and heard community concerns about the cancellation of the upcoming open forum during Monday night's meeting.
Asian Student Union President Carlos Oronce said he was disappointed in the Committee's decision to cancel the event.
The forum, according to Josh Hess, vice chair for community relations, was cancelled because of low expected turnout after the Committee "tried to generate turnout with typical methods such as e-mail."
Minority Rights Coalition Co-Chair Patrick Lee said he felt the lack of expected turnout was reflective of how the public generally views Honor.
The Committee's goal was to cosponsor the forum with another student organization, Hess said, but none expressed significant interest.
"Historically these type of events have low turnouts," Hess said. "Usually just people frequently involved in the honor system attend."
He noted that the proposed plan of cosponsorship sought to make the open forum an event involving community members other than those regularly participating in the workings of the honor system.
Hess acknowledged the lack of interest could also be attributed to the late timing of the event during the semester. He added that he hopes the incoming Committee will hold similar events earlier in the semester to avoid conflicts with midterms.
Also during Monday's meeting, Vice Chair for Investigations Linda Liu reviewed the Assessment of Transformation, enacted December 2006.
Transformation involved changes in the investigation procedure of honor offenses such as scheduling investigative panels within 16 days of the start of the investigation rather than at a later determined date and shrinking the panel from at least nine members to three in an attempt to make scheduling investigations easier.
Increasing efficiency and effectiveness of investigations were the goals of the changes, Liu said.
Decreasing time of investigations is "beneficial to professors who report cases by reducing the burden on them," she said. "It is also important for students to not have to wait for months and months for their trial."
According to the assessment, investigations from Jan. 24, 2004, to Dec. 6, 2006, took on average 50.68 days, while investigations after transformation averaged 24.96 days.
Liu noted the average investigation length remains above the targeted 16-day period because of cases carrying over Winter Break but added that the variation in individual investigation lengths has decreased from previous assessments, showing there is greater consistency in investigation length.
"Overall it was a success in reducing length of investigation," she said.
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