January 26, 2012
Violations for the fall semester of 2011 were up over 50 percent when compared with the fall semester of 2010. This past semester, approximately 160 students received points, compared with just 100 students who received points during last year’s fall semester. There may be a reason for the increase in violations, and it is not necessarily because this year’s students are rowdier.
On Monday, Jan. 9 Associate Dean of Students for Health and Safety Jeffrey Landry sent an all-campus email that linked to the list of code and student conduct violations and sanctions for the fall semester.
The summary of last semester’s judicial actions ranged from one to 10 points assigned. The offenses included petty crimes of having an open container to the more serious violations such as the possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Two students were suspended: one for one semester and the other for two semesters.
Fran Manfredo, director of Hamilton College Campus Safety, began an effort in the beginning of the year to have campus safety officers be more consistent in their reporting of incidents on campus.
“In prior years, we allowed officers to use their discretion when reporting violations,” said Manfredo. “In order to be more fair, I have asked officers to be consistent in their reporting. I believe that it should be fair throughout the campus.”
While he cannot point toward a single incident that caused him to make this change in enforcement, Manfredo did say that students have approached him in the past: “I’ve had a number of students say to me that the reporting wasn’t fair. In order to avoid that issue of, maybe, favoritism, we have just asked officers to be consistent in their reporting.”
Manfredo added that he was not sure whether the enforcement changes made resulted in a higher number of cases this semester.
Landry, on the other hand, sees it as a direct result: “I have no doubt that this, in part, has led to the increase of judicial cases.”
While he cannot necessarily discern whether this is because of more rule violations or reporting of them, he speculated that it is a little bit of both. Landry and Manfredo both emphasized that there have been no policy changes, just a clearer and more consistent method of reporting.
Students have mixed opinions on the decision to make reporting more consistent. Lauren Lanzotti ’14 said, “I think that the new policy makes sense in that it will prevent favoritism.”
On the other hand, Tori Fukumitsu ’15 said, “I don’t see the use of discretion in individual cases as an act of favoritism.” Having personal experience with a situation that was reported, Fukumitsu believes that if discretion were used he would have been treated more fairly.
According to Landry, typically “the fall semester is much more active than the spring.” Nevertheless, with the new TipNow system, which began in January with the spring semester and allows students to report suspicious activity anonymously, Landry said, “I expect it to be used often and the information provided will likely result in more Campus Safety investigations and judicial action.”
Whether that will happen remains to be seen.