Peer Review Board awakening

Matt Styer

Bryce Bergey and Kevin Docherty

After several years in hibernation, the Peer Review Board is awakening to a new season. By next semester, the Peer Review Board will be the authority on many Student Life violations currently handled by faculty and staff.

In its earlier days, the Peer Review Board handled all Student Life violations. In the past three years, the board has been in existence, but its use has been limited.

SGA Co-Presidents Kevin Docherty and Bryce Bergey campaigned to re-energize the dwindling activity of the Peer Review Board to its fullest potential. They saw it as a place to form community, not to increase animosity among students. The Co-Presidents are striving to shape a peer review process which understands that "everyone screws up in life, and we want this process to be some sort of means of healing and support from the campus community," said Bergey.

Last semester Ellen Miller, Docherty, and Bergey collaborated to form a committee that would develop a new process. Members on the committee are Student Life representatives Ellen Miller, Lauren Miller, and Kimberly Gascho, University Accord representatives Barry Hart and Dave Brubaker; as well as Docherty and Bergey.

The committee meets on a monthly basis. This month, a local attorney, Elizabeth Phelps, is sitting in with the committee to discuss certain legal issues involving violations that occur on the fringe of EMU's jurisdiction, such as in the campus bookstore, which is not owned by the school.

"It will be something that's really respected by everyone," said Bergey. "We don't want the Peer Review Board to be like a cop, someone who goes around disciplining people. Rather, this is a process of restorative justice."

Likewise, Ellen Miller said the greater function of Resident Life is not to be "like the Gestapo, going around looking in your rooms. You're in college and you make some unwise decisions sometimes. We've all been there."

In order to assure that the resurrected board does not convey the stereotypical perception of tattletales who reprimand the rule breakers, the committee is refining a selection process to ensure unbiased hearings. All members of the board will then undergo some level of restorative justice training under Hart and Brubaker, giving the board solid ground to work from and providing board members invaluable experience in conflict resolution. One of the three-person teams will be extensively trained and will be the specialists for cases involving interpersonal conflict.

The final process has not been drafted, but includes a proposal that each year a panel much like the current committee will select 15 applicants to be on the Peer Review Board. The sophomore, junior, and senior classes will all be equally represented on the board. First-year students will not participate. Although the selection will occur yearly, the committee will encourage students to stay on the Peer Review Board until they graduate. This will provide a stream of consistency from one year to the next, in which experienced members could act as mentors for newcomers to the board.

The 15 students will be further subdivided into teams of three, determined by class levels. Ideally, the team will have a time set aside where they review cases each week. In cases that are urgent, Resident Life staff will hear the case. The Residence Life staff will also regularly hear "cut and dried" cases such as open hours violations, to ensure that the board does not carry an undue load.