UA seeks input in JIO review

The Undergraduate Assembly tonight will discuss ways to increase student input for the review of the University's judicial charter, after calling last week for a provost's committee to reconsider its recommendation against splitting the role of the Judicial Inquiry Officer. In a letter addressed to Steve Burbank, chairperson of the Provost's Committee to Review the Judicial Charter, UA Chairperson Duchess Harris and the two undergraduate representatives on the committee asked for a reconsideration of the recommendation not to divide the JIO's duties between a "prosecutor" JIO and a "settlement" JIO. "We strongly feel that any recommendation made to University Council to approve the existing charter would not honestly reflect the opinions of the majority of the undergraduate students at the University," the letter said. Burbank said last night that he would reply to the UA. Provost Michael Aiken said last night that the committee's work is complete, and that it is now the responsibility of the oversight committee to review the recommendations. College junior Ken Tercyak, who co-signed the letter with Harris, said yesterday that students were "unanimously in the minority" in the discussion of whether to split the role of the JIO. But Tercyak said last night that the committee did not make enough efforts to solicit student opinion on the role of the JIO. "We didn't actively solicit the voices of undergraduate students in a comprehensive way," Tercyak said. Aiken said that no undergraduates attended the first meeting of the oversight committee. Harris said last night that all four student members of the committee favored splitting the role of the JIO. Also on the UA's agenda are discussion of plans for a letter drive to ask Trustees to decrease tuition, plans to add a debit card system to the PENNcard, plans to expand the UA's TA evaluation system to the Engineering School, and plans to publish a UA newspaper. The meeting will be the first officially attended by the newly-elected freshman UA representatives.

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