Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Faculty Senate to vote on consolidation
By Piper Huddleston
Staff Reporter

The TCU Faculty Senate will decide next week if the Student Organizations and Student Conduct and Grievance Committees should be consolidated, Lynn Flahive, chairwoman of the Student Conduct and Grievance committee, said Tuesday.

Flahive said the Senate wants to combine committees because some have not been meeting and have a lighter work load than others. The Senate is also concerned that not enough faculty members will volunteer to serve on committees, making it difficult to fill all needed positions, she said.

“We are trying to improve the distribution of work among faculty members,” Flahive said.

Flahive said that the Student Conduct and Grievance Committee has not met since 1999.

Angel Fuentes, chairman of Student Organizations, said his committee meets when an issue needs attention. Last year the committee met only a few times, Fuentes said.

Flahive said the Senate formed a temporary committee last summer to consider combining various university judicial committees. Student Conduct and Grievance, Student Organizations and University Court were recommended as having the potential to combine, she said.

Don Mills, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, said the University Court could not be combined with another committee because it is written in the Student Bill of Rights, which is meant to ensure a fair judicial process for students. The University Court is the highest judicial body a student can appeal a case to.

Mills said few disciplinary and student grievance cases actually go through a hearing procedure.

Flahive said she thinks few students go through a hearing procedure because the first step in disciplinary procedures is to go to the office of Campus Life.

“Students are satisfied with the sanctions that are given to them (through Campus Life), so there is no need for an appeal,” Flahive said.

Fuentes said the Student Organizations committee makes sure campus groups abide by university procedures. If a situation requires disciplinary procedure, Student Organizations has a hearing board consisting of faculty, staff and students.

The Student Conduct and Grievance committee also has a hearing panel, made up of faculty and students, to listen to individual student appeals, Flahive said. If the two committees are combined, a common hearing panel would be formed, she said.

Combining these committees to make one hearing panel would lessen the need for faculty members and still preserve committee functions, Mills said.

The combined hearing panel would consist of faculty and students who have either been recommended or who have volunteered, Flahive said. Faculty and students would have to be trained by the office of Campus Life, she said.

“I think that with the training a hearing panel would receive, students would be given a much more objective approach to disciplinary procedures,” Mills said.

The Faculty Senate will vote whether or not to combine the two committees and establish a hearing panel at their next meeting, Thursday, Oct. 4, Flahive said.

Piper Huddleston
k.p.huddleston@student.tcu.edu