I am writing in reference to the Monday's lead editorial ("Set Adrift," Oct. 26). I believe that the editorial, perhaps due to an incomplete observance of the Committee's discussion of Semester at Sea over the past three weeks, or perhaps because of the complexity of the issue itself, in many ways misses the point of the proposals currently being discussed and mischaracterizes the efforts of the Committee. The editorial focused on alleged "errors," "paradoxes," and "conflicts" without contextualizing the problem of administering the Honor System aboard the ship. I hope that a brief review of the Semester at Sea program, constraints faced, issues at stake, and possible solutions will help elucidate this issue more clearly for your readership and reveal that the alleged "conflicts" alluded to in Monday's editorial come from a misunderstanding of the theoretical and practical elements of the proposals.
The University became the academic sponsor of Semester at Sea in 2006; as such, a University faculty member oversees all academic affairs. Other logistics on each voyage - running the physical ship, providing meals, etc. - are handled by the Institute for Shipboard Education, an organization founded in 1976 that has provided educational experiences at sea since 1977. There are roughly 700 students on each voyage; between 10 to 30 claim the University as their home institution. Classes are held aboard the ship during the days it is at sea between port cities. When the ship reaches a port, students explore the city/country in which they have just arrived and meet back at the ship after a specified period of time.
When the University agreed to become the academic sponsor for the program, the Honor System was to play a large part in shipboard life. This makes sense for two main reasons. Since Semester at Sea students receive University credit, they should uphold the Honor System. Also, the Honor System is another way to foster a larger sense of community among students who come from a wide variety of colleges and universities. However, this goal, and the very unique character of the Semester at Sea program, have resulted in severe practical difficulties implementing an Honor System aboard the ship that grants the same level of due process as the Honor System here in Charlottesville grants.
The practical difficulties are myriad, but the two biggest ones are lack of trained personnel and compressed timelines. In a perfect world, the Honor Committee could fly all of the appropriate personnel to the Semester at Sea ship, adjudicate the matter as we do here in Charlottesville, and fly home. This is, however, impossible for obvious reasons. Furthermore, the Committee cannot guarantee that trained personnel will be on each voyage as students. Adjudicating these cases remotely is also impractical. Fairness dictates that a case should, whenever possible, be adjudicated in person and as close to the time of the alleged offense as possible. Moreover, communicating with the ship is prohibitively expensive - students pay for ship-to-shore calls and for internet minutes. In the age of shrinking budgets and endowments, the Committee does not have the resources to guarantee that all cases could be handled remotely.
With regards to timelines, a system can only be administered when the students are all aboard the ship; however, this time is limited to only the period between visits to ports, which can often be as few as two days. These practical difficulties have resulted in a process aboard the ship that has the potential for involvement from faculty in decision-making, operates on a shorter timeline that does not mirror the process here in Charlottesville.
This state of affairs is the very reason for the proposals the Committee is now considering, not a "paradox" as Monday's editorial suggests. Some members of the Committee are uncomfortable with permanently dismissing students from the University, whether it is their home institution or not, without those students enjoying all the rights afforded to them by our constitution and without the proceedings being decided by students whose home institution is the University. Hence, both proposals reviewed Sunday night require proceedings in Charlottesville before students are permanently dismissed from the University.
That being said, the desire for full proceedings in Charlottesville does not invalidate the proceedings aboard the Semester at Sea ship. Neither proposal discussed at Sunday's meeting envisions a system in which a not guilty verdict in Charlottesville would invalidate a guilty verdict on the ship. The Semester at Sea process, despite what these pages have alleged, is not "unfair;" it guarantees the same two fundamental elements of due process that the Charlottesville process does: notice (of the rules and how they work) and a right to be heard by an impartial fact finder. The difference is that the shipboard process lacks all of the "bells and whistles" associated with investigations and trials here. Some members of the Committee feel that those opportunities should be available to a student before he/she is permanently dismissed from the University. The underlying principle is that the level of due process administered aboard the Semester of Sea ship is appropriate for the punishment of removal from Semester at Sea academic program, but the more severe punishment of permanent dismissal from the University requires the level of due process administered in Charlottesville, which includes all of the rights in Article V of the Committee's constitution. Perhaps better said, as the severity of punishment increases, the level of due process should also increase.
In conclusion, I hope that the above explanation of Honor aboard Semester at Sea and the approach the Committee is currently considering give a better representation of the situation than does Monday's editorial. When viewed in a more holistic and contextualized fashion, as opposed to the vacuum of one meeting, many of the alleged "paradoxes" discussed in the editorial become different philosophical approaches, not deep-rooted conflicts. I also hope that my explanation shows the level of consideration that has gone, and will continue to go, into discussions of Honor aboard Semester at Sea.
David Truetzel is Chair of the Honor Committee.
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