THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 13, 1996 TAG: 9604130368
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
James Madison University's Honor Council and faculty Senate have asked school president Ronald E. Carrier to reinstate the penalties they imposed on two students who violated the honor code.
They also want to know why he became involved in the first place.
``The Senate is concerned that the written, stated procedures . . . (for) handling violations of the honor code have been circumvented arbitrarily and capriciously,'' said Dr. Andrew I. Kohen, the speaker of the faculty Senate.
``It's not fair, and it's also an abuse of the authority, or the power, that exists.''
The students were convicted of violating the honor code in January, after one signed the other's name to a class attendance sheet. A third student turned them in to the Honor Council. The class was not required for either student, and attendance has no bearing on grades, school officials said.
The Honor Council, made up of students and faculty members, gave both students a failing grade in the class and suspended them for one semester, a penalty that would have prevented both from graduating May 5.
Carrier, who must review and approve all honor convictions and penalties, notified the students of their sentences in a letter in late January, then overturned his decision after a review of the case by one of his aides.
``It's a clear case of the president taking an action that was proper and just,'' JMU spokesman Fred Hilton said. ``A lot of the argument here is over procedure. What is important is that a just decision is made.''
Both students have enough credits to graduate without the class, he said, and one already has a job lined up while the other is scheduled to attend graduate school.
``Something like this did not merit suspension, particularly for two students who were set to graduate,'' Hilton said.
William ``Trip'' Boyer, an Honor Council investigator assigned to the case, said the president's decision implies that the honor code is not uniformly enforced. ``People would be in an uproar if they got a different sentence'' for a similar violation, said Boyer, a senior from Harrisonburg.
Regulations allow the president to overturn a conviction or reduce a penalty, but the president is not supposed to reduce it below the minimum, which in this case is suspension for a semester, council members said.
Council members also complained they learned of the change only by accident, when a student member who works in a dean's office stumbled upon the convicted students' applications for graduation.
The faculty Senate passed a resolution last week asking Carrier to reinstate the original sentence, reaffirm the administration's support for the honor system and report to the Senate by April 25.
Members of the Honor Advisory Board, a group of students and faculty members that oversees the Honor Council, also met with Carrier and told him they were displeased, said Dr. David Zimmerman, the board's chairman. They have asked that the harsher sentence be reimposed.
``These students are not going to be suspended,'' Hilton said, adding that Carrier could simply have chosen to dismiss the conviction, as the regulations allow. ``But the end result would have been the same.''
KEYWORDS: JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY HONOR CODE by CNB