As soon as Maymester begins, students will see more flexibility in the University’s Code of Conduct regarding alcohol and drug violations.

Rodney Bennett

The previous policy ruled that students who were arrested on alcohol- or drug-related charges were to be placed on a six- to 12-month probation, but a second offense during that probation period would result in an automatic suspension from the University, regardless of the charge.

University Judiciary had little to no discretion on each individual case, but under the new system, hearing panels from the Office of Judicial Programs will have more authority to regulate punishments suitable for specific cases.

“The modifications will allow more discretion to student conduct officers, to University Judiciary members and to other hearing panels to more fully consider all of the circumstances of a case before making a determination about sanctions,” said Vice President for Student Affairs Rodney Bennett at Tuesday’s monthly cabinet meeting. “The proposed policy will allow us to change student culture as we resolve referrals more informally. The proposed policy will allow us to address violations more efficiently with regard to the date of the incident.”

Bennett said the changes will ease and reduce the number of minor incidents that clog the system under the old rules, and it will allow officials to focus more effectively on the more serious alcohol and drug violations.

Former Student Government Association president Katie Barlow made the minimum sanctions policy a key component of her administration.

“It’s certainly a long time coming,” Barlow said. “We’ve been working on it a while.”

She emphasized the benefits of the changes.

“The purpose fundamentally is to allow for a more equitable judicial policy and to give University Judiciary — which is primarily students — more discretion in cases and to provide a more philosophically educational component,” Barlow said.

University president Michael Adams said the new policy was designed to differentiate between a student caught with a beer in a dorm refrigerator and a DUI-related offense.

“We deal more forthrightly with the more serious cases. Anyone who believes that this is a free pass on alcohol violations needs to return to base zero because that’s not what this is designed to be,” he said. “They might be wise to interpret the greater flexibility on major cases as a likelihood of even more significant penalties … I don’t think it’s just the head football coach who’s wary of the reputation of the University being impacted by egregious behavior.”

When asked if the University was moving from a two-strike suspension rule to a three-strike policy, Adams said the new system will not make a blanket statement for how many charges one must accumulate before receiving punishment.

Instead, penalties will range in severity based on a more prioritized system of hearing cases.

“I would characterize the new policy as on the second strike there’s a higher level of judgment applied to the set of circumstances, so I don’t think we’re going to move to any three-strike situation,” Adams said.

Minimum probation periods will remain the same for the first offense, and any violation thereafter will be heard by the University Judiciary.

Students can expect a two-year trial period before the system will permanently be implemented, but the new rules will be in effect as soon as the start of this year’s Maymester term.

Some students, however, will receive the short end of the stick, as the policy does not overturn previous suspensions or expulsions.

Former student Michael Houck is one of the unlucky few. At last summer’s freshmen orientation, Houck was charged with underage consumption of alcohol and placed on probation for the academic year.

Houck was subsequently cited on alcohol-related misconduct earlier this semester.

“There were some people in my room drinking, and because I was in the room while they were in there drinking, I was condoning it, and the RA that wrote our room up wrote me up, too, and I ended up getting suspended for it,” he said.

Houck plans to return to the University in January 2011, when he will be allowed to transfer his credits from a community college.

Had the new system been in place, Houck may still have been suspended, but his case would have been a lower priority for Judiciary members to hear, and he might have gotten a lesser punishment.

“I feel like that’s a more forgiving system,” Houck said. “People have been talking to me, asking if I’m upset that I wasn’t grandfathered into that, and it’s unfortunate that it’s right after I’m getting suspended, but I would rather see them change it than have other people fall into the same situation as I did.”

Houck also said he believes more can be done to amend the University’s suspension policy.

“I was booted from the meal plan because my student account was shut off, so any time that I would come up there and visit, I wouldn’t be able to eat at the dining halls,” Houck said.

Houck said he was surprised  University Food Services refused to reimburse him for the meal plan he had already paid for.

So as not to receive failing grades in the classes he couldn’t finish, Houck also had to use up all four withdrawals students are allowed before being forced to take a failing grade.

“For the rest of college I’m not allowed to withdraw from a class without it being an F on my GPA,” he said.

Jerrod Lukacs, a senior from Lawrenceville and executive director of University Judiciary, said withdrawal issues are not being disregarded.

He said Associate Dean of Student Affairs Kimberly Ellis is looking into reviewing the withdrawal policy in reference to suspensions.

Lukacs helped formulate the new policy and said committee members’ main focus was more on implementing a more priority-based system than on the details of suspension regulations.

The reformed Code of Conduct regulations moved swiftly through the judicial process so upcoming freshmen will be subject to its rules for orientation.

“We wanted to do that so that it would be uniform for all the students coming in during the summer,” Lukacs said.

Tom Jackson, vice president for public affairs, said students with a history of arrests and misconduct will be subject to the new rules the same as anyone else.

University Judiciary will also continue to obtain police reports from the University and Athens-Clarke County police, he said.

When Houck returns to the University, he will not forget his experience with sanctions.

Houck said he plans to teach others what he’s learned in hopes that they will not make the same mistakes or be subject to the same difficulties.

“When I come back, I’m going to make sure that any incoming freshmen or anyone that’s younger than I am knows what happened to me,” he said. “I think awareness is probably the best part of preventing anything from happening.”