Potential Committee Responses
to Referenda
What we have been tasked with
• A constitutionally binding question in response to
the question: “Should the Honor Committee consider
implementing a multi-sanction system?”
• Gauging student opinions on potential changes
Potential Constitutional Response
• Placing direct question on the ballot
“Should the Honor Committee consider implementing a multisanction system?”
• Constitutionally binding the Committee to further
consideration with no change this year
“Every third year, the Honor Committee shall gauge student
opinion on its sanctioning policies.”
• Constitutional change that gives Committee the power to
make future change
“The Honor Committee shall have the power to:
Exclude permanently from student status or impose lesser
sanctions to University students found to have committed Honor
violations”
Gauging Student Opinion on Options
• Ways to gauge student opinion
– Ballot
– Student Body Wide Survey
Why the ballot isn’t our best option:
Wording: Should a majority of voting students vote
affirmatively on a non-binding question of opinion pertaining
to the Honor System in a University-wide election, the Honor
Committee shall, in the following year, put such question
before the student body as a binding constitutional
amendment.
Problems:
1. Vote affirmatively is meant for yes/no questions – our
options would not be yes/no.
2. Depending on how we define affirmatively, we’re stuck in
the same place, implementing a sanctioning system in our
constitution, not our by-laws where it belongs.
What we can do
• Put on a constitutionally binding question regarding the
Powers section or institutionalization of this conversation in
the Constitution
• Send out a student body wide survey gauging opinion on
the options we’ve proposed. Collect demographic
information so we also know who is responding/not
responding to our survey. If the Constitutional Amendment
passes, set forth a timeline for further consideration.
• Modify Section 2 of the Self-Governance Section of the
constitution so that in the future, the Committee can ask
question via the ballot and respond to them in the
appropriate places
New Language for Section 2.
• Should a majority of voting students vote affirmatively
on a non-binding question of opinion pertaining to the
Honor System in a University-wide election, the Honor
Committee shall, in the following year, put such
question before the student body as a binding
constitutional amendment.
• Should a majority of voting students vote affirmatively
on a non-binding question of opinion pertaining to the
Honor System in a University-wide election, the Honor
Committee shall enact a response within the time
frame of one year.