A Town Hall meeting on Thursday evening gave Binghamton University students the opportunity to give input on the current student code of conduct.
Paul Stroud, the director of student conduct, and Susan Briggs, the assistant director of student conduct, spoke with students in the University Union. Topics involved the violations of having drugs and alcohol, as well as some of the consequences students face when they violate the code.
Stroud gave a brief overview of the meeting’s purpose, saying that the main intention was to foster transparency when changing the code of student conduct.
”We want to have as many opportunities as we can to hear from students,” Stroud said.
He said that he wants students to understand the code because when rules become too dense, people tend to pay less attention to them.
”I like to think of it as a ‘thinking person’s code,’” Stroud said. “The worst thing that can happen is our code becoming like the laws in the city, with books upon books of things that no one reads.”
Attendees discussed the most common code violation committed — illegal use of drugs and alcohol. Briggs said that students receive a disciplinary warning when first caught, but repeated offenses lead to punishments such as a two-year probation.
”Everyone has room to make a mistake,” Briggs said. “But hopefully you learn something from the first time.”
Another topic discussed was the role the University has in student code violations that occur off-campus. Stroud also touched on the University’s role in off-campus conduct violations. Depending on the situation, the University is allowed to reprimand a student in violation of the code while off-campus. For example, he said, if a student is found dealing drugs off-campus, the University will take disciplinary action.
According to Stroud, the main goal of having a forum to discuss the code of student conduct was to make students aware that they have the power to make suggestions to the code that would benefit them and BU.
“We’re trying to make sure that people don’t think this is something done at the cloak of night,” Stroud said. “It’s an open process. It’s not my process, it’s our process.”
Stroud and Briggs will hold an additional meeting next Wednesday for students to discuss the code of conduct.