Student Code to get facelift

The University's Student Code of Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct will be getting a facelift soon as IU Bloomington and IU-Purdue University in Indianapolis form committees to revise and update portions of the code.\nThe committees, which will be formed sometime in August or September, will consist of two main groups, one from Bloomington and one from Indianapolis, both including students, faculty and staff.\n"There are people out there that think this code should be changed," Dean of Students Richard McKaig said.\nThe code, which governs seven of the eight IU campuses, was adopted in 1990, with changes being made in 1993 and 1996. IU-Purdue University Fort Wayne is not affected because it is governed by Purdue University.\nSome topics in need of revision have already been brought to McKaig's attention, such as whether classroom disruption should be considered a violation of student code, whether harassment through University technology, such as indiana.edu e-mail, should be included as a violation and whether selling class notes for profit should also be added as misconduct.\nRecently, some community members have complained of student misconduct off-campus in Bloomington's residential neighborhoods. McKaig said his committee is planning to take a look at student off-campus behavior and how it can be better mandated within the code.\nSome universities have been doing the same, such as the University of Maryland who recently cited expulsion as the primary punishment for students found guilty of post-game misconduct, like the riots that took place on Maryland's campus during the Terrapins' run towards the 2002 NCAA men's basketball championship trophy.\nMcKaig said he was unsure if post-game rioting would be looked at by his committee, even though IU has seen its share of off-campus misconduct following this year's NCAA men's championship tournament.\nIUPUI will be forming the same kind of committee as IU, which will be headed by IUPUI's Dean of Students Karen Whitney. Whitney would not elaborate on IUPUI's initial plans for changes in the code, but said there are plans to streamline the student legal process and to make the entire code easier to read and work with.\n"The last thing (students) would want would be a code that's out-of-date," Whitney said. \nWhitney said she hopes she can help make the code less intimidating to students, as well as making the student legal process more user-friendly.\nSenior Justin Barnes, IU Student Association's director of student rights, believes that making the legal process more user-friendly means shortening the process and giving students fewer options within the system, which he doesn't believe would work here in Bloomington.\n"We wouldn't allow it to go through," Barnes said. Barnes said he is concerned about the code even though he will graduate before he sees any new changes come into effect.\n"I'd like to see it be made simpler, more effective, and a little bit easier to deal with," Barnes said. \nBarnes and his student rights committee will even be making presentations to students at the beginning of the school year called "Campus Concerns" in which they will ask for student feedback on the code and how it can be improved.\n"This is something that students need to be concerned about," Barnes said.\nThe presentations will be made all over campus, including Greek houses and dormitories.\nThe two committees plan to meet separately and produce their own suggestions for improvements in the code. Bloomington's committee will present its suggestions to the Bloomington Faculty Council as well as the University Council. IUPUI will present their suggestions to the University Council as well. The suggestions will then be sent to the Board of Trustees, which will be voted on for approval. The entire process will take close to a year.\nMcKaig said he hopes to have his committee complete their suggestions by November, with presentations to the Bloomington Faculty Council by January and a vote by the Board of Trustees to occur sometime next summer.