On Wednesday, the Georgetown University Student Association sent an open letter to Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson pushing him to accept the Disciplinary Review Committee’s proposal to raise the Code of Conduct standard from “more likely than not” to “clear and convincing.”

“Our goal with the letter to Dr. Olson was to, hopefully, speed a favorable decision on clear and convincing. The Disciplinary Review Committee’s recommendations should be taken seriously on student code of conduct, since it involves a team of administrators, staff, faculty and students,” Clara Gustafson (SFS ’13) wrote in an email to Vox. ”In the past Dr. Olson’s signing off on a recommendation has been merely a matter of process and not a means to delay a recommendation from being implemented. We are looking forward to a positive culmination of what has been a lengthy process.”

In the letter, GUSA emphasizes the struggle students have with the student conduct process. “In general, the system appears unpredictable and opaque, and few students view their interactions with the Office of Student Conduct as a learning experience,” the letter read. The letter also pointed out that the Georgetown University Law Center uses the “clear and convincing” standard, as do other prominent universities (Duke University, Cornell University, and University of Pennsylvania).

At the end of last semester, GUSA unanimously passed a resolution in support of raising the burden of proof standard. However, with the new semester back in swing, Olson has not shown any signs that he will accept the standard. In late April, Olson responded saying he would seriously consider the recommendation.

Olson arranged an “external review” for late September to examine both the Code of Student Conduct and the Division of Student Affairs and its staff. He plans to delay his decision until after this review takes place.

Full text of the letter to Olson after the jump!

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, at Georgetown University Student Association’s final session of the semester, the Senate passed a resolution in favor of raising the burden of proof standard to “clear and convincing” in the Student Code of Conduct. The resolution, voted on at yesterday afternoon’s Senate meeting, received unanimous consent.

This clause, recently approved by the Disciplinary Review Committee, must now be implemented by Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson. The current Code of Conduct standard holds a “more likely than not” burden of proof to find a student guilty of a violation.

GUSA President Clara Gustafson (SFS ’13) created a Hoya Roundtables Ideascale post that has garnered almost 200 votes in the past 24 hours. The vote is part of an effort to uphold the DRC recommendation and encourage Dr. Olson to follow through with implementation as soon as possible. Ideascale, crowd-sourced ideas forum created by the COO Chris Augostini’s office, allows students to submit ideas or concerns related to student life and other students can vote these ideas up or down based on whether or not they support these ideas. The idea submitted by Gustafson reached the third rank in terms of popularity, followed by an idea to allow non-MSB students full access to the Hariri Building and an idea to provide campus-wide wireless Internet.

Tentatively signaling a major shift in University policy, the Disciplinary Review Committee today approved a change to the Student Code of Conduct that raises the burden of proof standard from “more likely than not” to “clear and convincing.” The change, which must now be approved by Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson, would establish a more rigorous requirement to find a student guilty of a Code violation and issue necessary sanctions.

The DRC, comprised of students and administrators, is the primary body tasked with considering possible changes or amendments to the Student Code of Conduct. The current Code states that a student can be found guilty of a violation as long as it is “more likely than not” that he or she committed the offense. The amendment would require evidence of wrongdoing beyond merely the likelihood that a crime was committed.

Former GUSA President and Vice President Mike Meaney (SFS ’12) and Greg Laverriere (COL ’12) spent their executive term fighting to pass the more rigorous “clear and convincing” clause. The two created a Student Advocacy Office as a resource for students facing disciplinary charges. ”Our loftiest goal was to raise the burden of proof, something Georgetown as a student body has been trying to do for years,” former SAO coordinator James Pickens (COL ’12) said. ”We’re hoping that [Dr. Olson] will consider the recommendations favorably.”

The current GUSA Executive, which has supported the efforts of their predecessors, hopes to see the proposal implemented in the fall. “This is a great first step in improving the adjudication process at Georgetown, and we encourage Dr. Olson to follow through on the desire of the duly appointed committee. This is the right thing for students,” GUSA Vice President Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS’ 13) said.

“Hopefully in the fall we can have it implemented,” GUSA President Clara Gustafson (SFS ’13) said.

On April 14, Senators Robert Casey (D-PA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced legislation to broaden the array of relationship and sexual crimes that colleges must report to the federal government under the Clery Act.

Under the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (S.834), colleges that receive federal funding would now have to report not only instances of sexual assault, but also domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking, as well as the procedures it follows in the case of each offense. The bill also outlines new requirements for sexual violence education, including so-called “bystander training,” and notification of a victim’s right to seek law enforcement or court action.

Read the rest of this entry »

7:30 p.m. update: Earlier today, NBC Washington has additional details about the chemicals found in Harbin 926. While searching the room, the officers discovered “a pickle jar filled with a red substance, six mason jars containing a clear substance, and a turkey baster” as well as “a black suitcase [that] emanated strong odors.”

Original post: As reported earlier TBD, the Hoya and DCist, the Metropolitan Police Department charged two Georgetown freshmen and a freshman at the University of Richmond for manufacturing a controlled substance.

Charles Smith, John Romano, and John Perrone were held for questioning on Saturday after University Public Safety officers investigated a strange odor on the ninth floor of Harbin Hall. The officers discovered their so-called “drug lab” shortly after 5 a.m., which prompted an early-morning, building-wide evacuation. The three men were later arrested and removed from campus.

Early reports claimed that they were attempting to produce methamphetamine, however, Drug Enforcement Administration officials later confirmed that the drug was dimethyltryptamine, commonly called DMT.

DMT, a Schedule I drug, is typically consumed for its hallucinogenic properties, according to the DEA Office of Diversion Control. Due to the short hallucinogenic effects associated with the drug, consuming DMT is also known as “the businessman’s high.”

According to the University’s Student Code of Conduct, a student who “intentionally manufacture[s] counterfeit or controlled substance” can be charged with a Category C violation—”the most serious level of infraction.” Category C violations “likely” result in disciplinary suspension or expulsion.

Smith, Romano, and Perrone will be arraigned in court on Monday morning, according to TBD.

Earlier this month, the Department of Public Safety released its Annual Crime Report. Buried in the 30 plus pages of security policy and procedure, which are required by the Clery Act, are numbers on campus crimes for the 2009 calendar year.

A variety of “Category A” violations, including those for noise, party hosting, disorderly conduct, and personal responsibility, decreased compared to the previous year. (Noise violations, for example, went down from 556 to 337.)

The decrease in party hosting violations is especially eye-catching; the number decreased from 147 to 26—a more than 80 percent drop—compared to 2008.

Read the rest of this entry »

Think you’ll ace some of your classes this fall? Wanna bet on it?

Ultrinsic, a website that allows students to gamble on future grades, recently expanded to 36 college campuses, including Georgetown.

To sign up for an account, students must share their schedules and transcripts with the website. Then, the gambling starts.

After deciding how well they expect to do in a course, students contribute money towards an “incentive,” while Ultrinsic coughs up the rest. If they get the grade they expected, then they win the full incentive. If not, they lose it all.

(And for cynics and underachievers among us, the website also offers grade insurance.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, Georgetown Day. It’s a time for sunshine, carnival rides, and of course, rampant drinking—until now.

“Georgetown Day Event Policies,” a list of rules outlining some no-no’s, was posted on the Georgetown Day website last night. (The document is available to download here.) And as much as it pains Vox‘s heart to say it, it seems that the University is finally clamping down on the alcoholic tendencies that make up the fiber and being of Georgetown Day for many students.

While most of the GU Day policies are re-treads of current Student Code of Conduct policies, such as “Unauthorized alcoholic beverages are not permitted at the event,” and “Any alcoholic beverages and/or coolers found in the public event space may be confiscated,” other event policies are completely new additions.

“We were thoughtful about the sanctions, considering the fact that the event is close to the end of the year,” Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Jeanne Lord said on Monday night.

Most notably under these policies, underage students caught drinking in any “Georgetown Day public event spaces” will face a tough choice: Pay a $50 fine, or spend two hours “volunteering” for Georgetown Day clean up. If a student chooses the latter, he’ll be expected to check in at the Volunteer Table promptly at 5 p.m.

Additionally, the event policies state, “DPS officers have the right to inspect personal belongings such as backpacks in the event area if they suspect individuals of bringing alcohol to the event.”

For a price, those over 21 won’t have it too badly. From 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., a concession area will be open for all of-age persons to knock back a few beers—so long one doesn’t balk at the $10 admission. (The fee, which will help support Georgetown’s Haiti Relief and Recovery efforts, gets bumped to $15 without a GO Card.) So, what do you get for the price of admission?

“[Each] paid guest will receive a reusable cup,” according to the event policies.

Image by @KingGeorgetown, who might be a bit distraught when he reads this post.

GUSA’s intended punishment for the Voice

Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11) shot back at the critics of GUSA’s funding board reform at yesterday’s meeting, delivering an eight-minute rebuttal to a recent Voice editorial, which advocated against the reform. In Troiano’s words, he wanted to “set the record straight.” He described the editorial’s claim that reform could “threaten the funding sources for clubs and sports teams” as “unfounded, incendiary remarks, that I believe are flat-out irresponsible for a campus media outlet to state.”

Troiano cited a 2006 referendum that passed with 91 percent of the vote to give GUSA the power to appropriate Student Association funds as evidence that the student population was in support of the reform. He said that “91 percent of students disagree with the editorial board” on the board’s assertion that giving the Senate absolute control over the student activities fee threatens student clubs and student life on campus.

Read the rest of this entry »

GUSA will not stand for these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane campus

GUSA FUND: The big news from this week’s meeting was that the Senate passed the long-debated GUSA Fund, which will allow them to fund clubs directly. For more information, check out Vox‘s post from earlier this morning.

HATE CRIMES: GUSA passed a revised version of Senator Josh Mogil‘s (SFS ’11—Off Campus) changes to the Student Code of Conduct regarding hate crimes on a vote of 16 to two, with one abstention.

The new version of the resolution adds Hate-Crimes as a Category C violation, but keeps bias as a “parameter” for other violations that are not “criminal acts of hate,” but are motivated by the aggravating factor of bias.

Mogil said he decided to leave in the section on “bias-related incidents” after speaking with Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson about the resolution.

Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A, A-D) still had doubts about the necessity of the resolution.

“There’s no practical difference between someone who’s adjudicated based on a criminal act that would otherwise fall under Category C violations and those that would now fall under the sub-category,” Troiano said.

Read the rest of this entry »