Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
The Observer

Updates presented by 3 task forces Monday

 The Campus Life Council (CLC) met Monday to present updates from their three task forces.

Student body vice president Cynthia Weber, who is chairman of the evaluation of student disciplinary records, said her group was moving quickly and contacting key University officials to accomplish their mission.
 
"We are looking at expunging records of a minor disciplinary infraction," she said. "The purpose of discipline at Notre Dame is education, and if education has already happened why should [the record] follow."
 
Weber said the task force looked at what the disciplinary practice is and worked on questions, which were later posed to Associate Vice President of Residence Life Bill Kirk.
In addition, members of the group were asked to submit mock proposals with their own ideas of how the new disciplinary process should work.
 
Student Union Board manager Kat Burke asked Weber if the group considered extending the option to transfer students during their first year on campus.
 
Weber said the group will take the suggestion into consideration, but the outcome will be primarily due to how much the Office of Residence Life and Housing is willing to change.
Sophomore John DeLacio, president of the Student Legal Services group, said the group has been using other universities as a benchmark of what has been done so far.
 
"On one extreme, there are options like N.C. State, where the university writes letters on their student's behalf [when they are in legal trouble], while other extreme schools have volunteers who give legal advice, like William and Mary," DeLacio said.
 
In addition to these two scenarios, he said there were some other cases, which the task force was looking into. These included having one lawyer for all student cases, using legal interns for advice, having an online database of local attorneys who would offer advice or using the legal aid clinic at the law school.
 
DeLacio said the legal aid clinic at the law school was a highly unlikely option because the clinic's services focus primarily on community members who cannot afford an attorney.
 
"They weren't really willing to help," he said.
 
Campus advertising chairman Bridget Bredemann said the task force centered their research to focus on informing the student body about events available to them.
 
The group initially looked into creating a central Web site that would hold a calendar of all events occurring around campus, but then decided it would be too similar to the new agenda.nd.edu — set to launch Jan. 29. 
 
Student body president Grant Schmidt said CLC has contributed their recommendations the Web site and is completely supportive of it.
 
"We are 100 percent behind that Web site," he said.
 
Instead of pursuing advertising through the online venue, as the task force had initially thought, they will be looking at innovative ways to adverat tise throughout campus.