Senate Beat

CW: Brief mentions of sexual violence

Appointments this week

Noah Sjoblom & Cleo Schaumann as SOS (Student Opportunity Subsidy) Committee Members

Lyla Boyajian & Dashiell Allen as Election Czars

This week, the new Restorative Justice policy was passed by a faculty vote and will officially take effect before the start of the next academic year. As a result, applications will be posted this week for new positions created as a part of the new format of the Restorative Justice Coalition.

The theme of this week’s senate meeting was centered around the Honor process at Reed. It was specifically meant to foster discussion on Restorative Justice and community dealings with honor, in addition to the administration’s process of handling honor cases. Representatives of every group involved in the Honor process at Reed were present at the meeting, including Vice President for Student Services Mike Brody. The student representatives addressed their groups’ participation in the honor system while highlighting recent changes to their procedures regarding incidents such as honor violations — a student infraction that can range from academic misconduct to sexual assault. While the meeting helped facilitate conversation about honor between student representatives and senate, most of the meeting’s focus was on the discourse between students and Brody about recent changes to honor policies that will take effect in the near future. Such changes include the appointment of Dean of Students Bruce Smith as the designee in honor cases handled by administrators, in which he will decide appropriate sanctions to impose depending on the outcomes of cases.

According to Brody, Reed is still “pretty much by itself in terms of having students involved in proceedings.” This reflects the transparency of the system, which the new changes will help to promote further. The only other private liberal arts college that operates on an honor system similar to Reed’s is Swarthmore College, which also involves students in all levels of the school’s honor and judicial proceedings. The only other thing expected to significantly impact the honor policy at Reed is the new federal Title IX regulations, which Reed’s administration will be obligated to comply with. Once the Department of Education revises the guidelines based on the public’s comments, they will take effect, likely within the next year, and will most likely impact the honor system.