Op-Ed
The Campus Code and Shared Governance
From David
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The University Assembly has approved a revised Code of Judicial Conduct (the “Campus Code”) as prepared by the Codes and Judicial Committee, and I wholeheartedly congratulate both of these bodies and concur with the proposed revision. This day marks the end of a long and sometimes difficult process. It is a good day for shared governance on our campus.
The revised code accommodates in a balanced way the rights of the accused, the needs of victims, and the interests of the university community. The new code upholds important principles of individual and institutional fairness and accountability. And it does so in a way that renders the code more balanced and comprehensible, and makes it more of a “Cornell Code” and less like a criminal code.
I applaud, recognize and thank the CJC and the UA for their tireless efforts, tenacity, and integrity. All parties worked hard and carefully to get to this point, but I want to specifically recognize and thank Kathleen Rourke (CJC chair), Andrew Cowan (CJC secretary and student leader), Professors Marty Hatch and Randy Wayne (UA faculty leaders who participated actively and effectively throughout) and Professor Kevin Clermont (who crafted the revised code). All of us, as well as future Cornellians, owe these individuals and their colleagues our profound gratitude.
This is my last column for the year and marks the completion of my second academic year as president and my second year as a Sun columnist. In these columns, we have dealt with difficult issues including campus violence, mental health challenges, racial and intellectual diversity and many others. It seems fitting to end this year on a positive note as the debate on the code has come to equilibrium. Although at times the process has revealed lack of trust and strong disagreement among the several groups with an interest in this very important document and process, I believe recent months have reflected a “textbook example” of shared governance at Cornell. This has been an example of compromise and dialogue, of recognition that the university president and the University Assembly share oversight authority over the code, and of shared responsibility to work toward the common good of the campus community.
The most recent review of the code began in November 2005 at the request of the president, the dean of students and dean of faculty. The process continued when I requested in November 2006 that the UA take on this issue. Extensive deliberations by the CJC and UA resulted in a revised code submitted to me at the end of the fall semester of 2007. In February of 2008, after careful review of the enormous work put in by the CJC and UA, I accepted several of the revisions but felt compelled to press for further discussion and modification of several others. In my response to the UA, I stressed that the code is a system of accountability and that the central concern for all those who share in the governance of the campus is that individuals are held to account for misconduct that is injurious to other members of our community, but in a way that protects their rights.
Since February, the CJC, the UA and four senior university leaders (General Counsel Jim Mingle, and Vice Presidents Tommy Bruce, Susan Murphy and Mary Opperman) worked together, along with many knowledgeable colleagues across the campus, further to revise the code. The process began with my meeting with many of those working on the code, including CJC and UA members and my own senior staff. I sincerely wish that we all had had such a meeting at the outset when I first asked the UA to become engaged in the code review. Nonetheless, I believe we learned from the experience and the final result, not ideal from the perspective of all the parties, but acceptable to the vast majority (the UA vote was 14-2), resulted from novel ideas introduced during the process and a better understanding of differing perspectives on our campus and beyond. For example, more extensive involvement of third-year law students and the appointment of more judicial codes counselors were fruits of the continuing collaboration that resulted in the latest revision, as was an appeal mechanism regarding sanctions. In addition we have taken note of the request, put forward in the cover letter, that we review the workload of the JA and CJC resulting from the addition of off-campus cases.
As promised in my letter of December 2006, through this column and as part of an end-of-year message to the campus that will be sent in about two weeks, I am sharing the news of the revised code with the entire campus, and we will post the revised code on the university web site this week. This will permit all members of the community to see the tangible results of the shared governance process. Monday of this week I also wrote to the UA leadership, informing them of my agreement with the revised code. At the May meeting of our Board of Trustees, I will recommend that the Board accept a new code for our university. I will share with them the outcome of this hard and ultimately successful process and share with them my gratitude and respect for my colleagues in the shared governance system of Cornell. I hope you share that gratitude and respect as well.
I wish all readers of the Sun a terrific summer and look forward to our continuing work together next year. Thank you for another extraordinarily gratifying year at Cornell.
David J. Skorton is president of Cornell University. He can be contacted at david.skorton@cornell.edu. From David appeared each month this semester.