Faculty Council hears proposed changes to Honor Court proceedings

The Faculty Council meeting on Friday discussed amendments to the Instrument of Student Judicial Governance, contextual grading transcripts and the UNC Center for Civil Rights.

What happened?

The proposals to the Instrument of Student Judicial Governance were recommended by the Committee on Student Conduct and affected several sections regarding academic dishonesty. The Faculty Council approved all proposed amendments. 

The description of a “minimal” offense was proposed to be amended because the current definition does not define an Honor Code violation. 

The term was previously defined academic dishonesty as “despite a clear intent and effort to produce honest work.” The proposed definition describes the academic dishonesty as not having the potential to subvert academic work or give an undue advantage over other students.

Intent was proposed to be removed from offense descriptions as well.

The Educational Policy Committee recommended against implementing a contextual grading transcript, which would include additional grade descriptors like median course grades and “grade census” dates to freeze the contextualized information.

The Faculty Council also discussed a proposed resolution by the UNC Board of Governors that is seeking to eliminate litigation capacity of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, a portion of the UNC School of Law.

Who spoke?

Frank Jiang, the undergraduate student attorney general, said the removal of the term intent would take away the question of whether a student intentionally cheated and would instead focus on how severely the offense affected coursework.

“By adding intent, it was creating a more subjective evaluation process just because it’s hard to gauge, throughout the course of an Honor Court testimony, exactly what the student’s intent might have been in that moment in the past,” Jiang said.

The main reasons behind the recommendation from the Educational Policy Committee include the technological challenges and high costs associated with producing contextualized grading.

“We believe that generating this transcript is impracticable, either in official or unofficial capacity, at this point in time,” Educational Policy Committee Chairperson Kristin Reiter said.

Provost Jim Dean said the University is working to fight the resolution to eliminate litigation capacity of the Center for Civil Rights so it can continue the mission.

“We’re going to do our best to try and make sure that the legal training that these centers offer continue to be offered and that the center can continue to advocate for the rights of all people in North Carolina, particularly the underprivileged in North Carolina,” Dean said.

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