The University Judiciary Committee had its first general body meeting for the 2016-17 academic year Sunday. Members discussed the upcoming internal election, advertising and recruitment of new members and a planned timeline for trials.
Vice Chair for Trials Peter Bautz, a second-year Law student, said an important part of his job was to schedule trials.
“Generally we like to schedule mid-September for cases to start,” Bautz said. “The first two weeks are for members to settle down and meet with witnesses to gather information.”
However, two kinds of cases would be scheduled early if they come up.
“One exception to the general cases is when the Dean of Students issues an Interim Suspension to a student, and when the student asks UJC for a trial, we would endeavor to accommodate the request as soon as possible,” Bautz said.
The other exception is a serious case where “there could be a suspension on the table,” Bautz said. He said UJC is currently dealing with one such case and would hold a hearing for it “as quickly as possible.”
In the past week, UJC participated in multiple educational events with groups such as the Black Student Alliance, resident advisors and the Office of African-American Affairs.
Vice Chair for First-Years Jacqueline Kouri, a fourth-year Engineering student, said the previous information session had a great turnout, and another two would be held on Aug. 30 and 31.
UJC Chair Mitchell Wellman, a fourth-year College student, said the recruitment of new members was important and encouraged current members to reach out to individuals whom they think “would be great for UJC.”
Students can apply to become UJC support officers, which are divided into counselors, educators and investigators.
Successful support officer applicants will need to take an exam on UJC’s policies and procedures and also interview with a senior support officer.
First-year students can also apply to join the First Year Judiciary Committee, a 12-member body that hears cases of first years who are accused of standards of conduct violations.
Those interested need to take a short exam before being called for a group interview. The final stage is an individual interview and qualified candidates are selected to join the committee.
This year’s test will go live at 7 p.m. on Sept. 7 and open until the end of day on Sept. 12.
Vice Chair for Sanctions Deborah Luzader, a Ph.D. student in the School of Medicine, announced she will step down from her position soon because of an early graduation, and an election will be held for the position.
The executive committee opened up the floor for any comments from the general body at the end of the meeting.
Wellman said there are both external and internal goals for the committee in this year ahead.
“Our main external goal focuses on engaging the broader community through increasing outreach events, such as the series of mock trials,” Wellman said. “Internally [there is a] focus on the case processing system. We see so many cases each semester, and we want to be more efficient [in] processing them.”
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