Guidelines for a Party Breaking or Not Completing Resolutions

The following guidelines outline the appropriate response if a trial party violates or does not complete resolutions in a timely manner. These guidelines were drafted in consultation with the Dean of the College.

Resolutions of an Honor Council proceeding that are not worded as recommendations are binding and require the confronted party(ies) to complete them in order to be fully restored to the Haverford community. As per Section 7.02 Part IV (Universal Trial Procedures) of the Student’s Constitution “any resolution requiring action by a trial party must have a deadline or time frame for completion”. These guidelines offer an appropriate avenue for Honor Council to take in the event that a trial party does not complete resolutions in accordance with the timeline, breaks a resolution, or is in line to graduate without the completion of trial resolutions.

A Trial Party Breaking a Specified Resolution:

Completing trial resolutions is necessary for a party to be restored to the community. A clear break of a specified resolution is a second violation of the Honor Code and the values of trust, concern, and respect that this community shares. A break of a specified resolution is defined as committing an action that contradicts the resolution, as opposed to a party’s failure to take action and not completing a resolution on time.

Given that a break of a resolution represents a violation of community standards, the party who broke the resolutions will be confronted by the contacting Co-Chair on behalf of Honor Council and asked to submit a statement detailing how the break of the resolution came about and any circumstances surrounding it. The contacting Co-Chair will submit a subsequent statement detailing the resolution broken and how it was broken. This Co-Chair will stand outside consensus on all further decisions made by Honor Council on the matter, and is considered a party confronting on behalf of Honor Council.

Honor Council will review the statements and decide on the most appropriate avenue for handling the matter. The case should be sent to a social trial unless Honor Council feels the goals of such a trial have already been met or would be met via another process more appropriately.

A Trial Party Not Completing a Resolution within the Specified Timeline:

Every resolution requiring action on the part of the party will have a specified timeline on completion. This timeline is to assure the proper restoration of the party within a reasonable timeframe. To assure this, as soon as a jury comes to finalized resolutions, they should be sent to the current Honor Council Staff Support person for appropriate follow up.

The Honor Council Staff Support person should make every effort to follow up with a trial party on resolutions in order to assure they are completed on time. As the deadline comes up, the trial party should be notified. If the trial party is unresponsive, the Dean of the College should be consulted for them to contact the student or for alternate forms of contact. If the party does not complete the resolutions in the specified timeline despite these efforts, they will be asked to meet with one of the currently serving Co-Chairs of Honor Council as well as the Staff Support Person to discuss strategies for completing this resolution and potential consequences if they do not. The trial party should be informed that not completing resolutions in their timeframe represents not being fully restored to the community, and the Dean of the College in consultation with the Honor Council Executive Board would consider imposing conditional separation as well as preventing registration from classes until completion of resolutions. Conditional separation means separation from the college until completion of the specified resolutions. The Honor Council Executive Board will make Honor Council aware of these discussions during trial updates.

Additionally, a trial party with outstanding resolutions will not be allowed to graduate. The Honor Council Staff Support Person will keep an updated list of students without completed resolutions and their class years to assure that seniors with outstanding resolutions are appropriately contacted concerning this and are informed that their diploma will be withheld without completion of these resolutions. Should a party graduate with outstanding resolutions due to oversight, the Dean of the College should withhold the transcripts of the party until such resolutions are completed.

If a party is off campus due to a college or dean’s leave and they have outstanding resolutions in which the timeframe has elapsed, they will be contacted by the Honor Council Staff Support person informing them of this and seeing if an alternate timeline can be reached in light of their circumstances for leave. If such an alternate timeline cannot be reached, conditional separation will be considered in accordance with above procedures.

Special Concerns

The Staff Support Person as well as the Honor Council Executive Board will offer help and assistance as needed in this and any other circumstances in which the resolutions were unclear or cumbersome to complete. Juries should strongly consider specifying members of the jury to assist a trial party in completing resolutions they feel require additional assistance on. The Staff Support Person should also keep an updated list and record of students with resolutions not yet completed as well as their deadlines. The Staff Support Person should inform the parties a minimum of one week before the deadline elapses that they have an outstanding resolution in addition to their additional communications with trial parties.

In the event of a trial resulting from a party breaking a resolution, the jury will be informed about the past trial during the preliminary meeting. This process will bypass the guidelines concerning ‘Informing Juries about Past Honor Council Proceedings’ given that the new trial itself is directly related and tangential to the original one and its resolutions.

Should a party with outstanding resolutions needed for the release of an abstract (i.e. letter to the community) be on leave, Honor Council should consider consenting to the release of the abstract if they have been unreachable for over one (1) month and the trial is over one (1) year old. This is necessary as Honor Council has an obligation to inform the community of its proceedings and must balance that with the ability of a trial party to complete resolutions needed for the abstract on time.

Consented to by Honor Council on December 12, 2014.