 "Photo:")
Associate Chancellor for Diversity Seymour Bryson said Tuesday that students are not the only ones who think the Student Conduct Code is flawed and urged students to come together to speak out against the administration.
Bryson, the only one of four invited administrators to come to a meeting of SIUC's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said concerns about the code and the university's court-like Student Judicial Affairs would be best heard in unison.
"It's very clear that people know this document is flawed," Bryson said, telling the meeting's attendees they need to take a stance as an official entity to get their voices heard.
Nearly 100 SIUC students, faculty, staff and Carbondale citizens filled a lower level room of Grinnell Hall on Tuesday for the NAACP meeting.
Organizers called the meeting to discuss concerns about the university's Student Conduct Code and Student Judicial Affairs after the recent suspensions of nine Chicago-area freshmen whom authorities linked to an assault on a sophomore earlier this month.
By the meeting's conclusion, 61 of the attendees joined a grassroots endeavor Bryson started.
After the meeting, Bryson said the issue with the most recent case is not about race - all of the suspended students were black - but rather about due process.
Bryson brought an excerpt of the report from the Agility and Efficiency Task Force, which was commissioned by the chancellor to conduct an extensive review to recommend how to streamline SIUC's operations. It was completed in 2005. Chancellor Walter Wendler did not return a message seeking comment late Tuesday evening.
The report called for "greater transparency" in Student Judicial Affairs and stated the process is "very subjective on many levels." It recommended an appeals board be composed of students and faculty, eliminating the appeals process through Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Larry Dietz.
"If you go on the record saying this needs to be implemented, it'd be kind of hard for someone to not give it serious consideration," Bryson said.
The Rev. Joseph Brown, director of the Black American Studies department, said Tuesday night was the first time he had ever seen the report on Student Judicial Affairs.
"I never saw this before. They wrote it up two years ago and didn't tell you. There's something wrong here," he said.
The report, which was covered extensively by the DAILY EGYPTIAN, was made public during the summer of 2005. In a July article about the Student Judicial Affairs portion of the text, coordinator Terry Huffman called the criticism incorrect.
"I don't know how we can have greater transparency," Huffman said in the article. "I don't even know what they are talking about."
Huffman, along with Dietz and Housing Judicial Affairs coordinator Carlos Del Rio, were invited to speak at the meeting.
Black Affairs Council coordinator Kevin Winstead said the NAACP invited the administrators to answer questions about and clarify elements of the Student Conduct Code, but the administrators declined for various reasons.
Bryson did not mince words about the missing administrators.
"That shows disrespect. That shows lack of caring," he said about his absent colleagues.
Dietz said he was speaking at a local high school and that he believed Del Rio and Huffman were teaching night classes.
Bryson said the report's recommendations prove students are not the only ones who disagree with the makeup of the code and Student Judicial Affairs.
"I think everybody's recognizing there needs to be some changes," Bryson said. "Nothing can happen until the vice chancellor (Dietz) sits down and begins making changes."
Dietz, who oversees Student Judicial Affairs and 12 other departments, said Wendler recently asked him to organize a committee to observe the Student Conduct Code. The observation is only meant as "self-education" for the chancellor's executive committee and not an actual review of the code, which is scheduled to occur in 2008. The executive committee includes much of the higher administration.
Dietz said he has tried to convene the committee, but scheduling conflicts have prevented a meeting.
He said the Agility and Efficiency Task Force recommendations on Student Judicial Affairs were unclear, particularly in the calls for the organization to be more transparent and the claims that it is subjective.
"The office doesn't go out and make its own charges," Dietz said.
Winstead said he would set up a meeting with administrators so the new grassroots committee could voice its opinions. At Tuesday's meeting, the fledgling group voted to approve the Agility and Efficiency Task Force's suggestion and voted to recommend implementation of those suggestions.
Retired professor Ella Lacey praised the new committee's mission.
"This university is based on students. If the students left, there would be no university," she said.
Bernadette McKenzie, a senior from Carbondale studying social work, said the university would stop caring if the students didn't take action.
"If I could shut the door on my bill collectors and they'd go away, I'd for sure do it," McKenzie said.
Brandon Weisenberger can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or brandon_weisenberger@dailyegyptian.com.
