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Tuesday, April 16, 1974
N.C. ESSAY
For Robin Costelloe
By ALTON BUZBEE
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Lssa> Photo 1»\ Bill VVron
When you saw him and his many friends
playing with the biggest building blocks in Carolina
you could see that the man could not outwit the boy
and run away from him completely.
So it was in everything for him:
The boy in him found joy in everything a man would hope to see.
Sunday morning parties were the norm.
They found him caught up in a storm
of Irish laughter or a righteous rage
when inhumanity dared upon his stage.
A woman’s beauty or a wine’s delight
could bring a brightness to his blackest night.
He saw himself as Irish and as man
and lived the image as only joyful boys can.
God blest him!
God rest him!
- Buzbee
Alton Buzbee is a counselor on the NCSA
staff.
Judicial Board: Justice Affirmed
By SHAWN NELSON
Usually, when there comes the un
fortunate need for a student to be brought
before his peers and superiors for im
proper conduct on his part, he or she is
brought before the lower of two NCSA
boards, the review board.
In the cases, however, which are
deemed gross violations (a la student
handbook) of student code, a student
may be brought before the higher
judicial board. Consisting of the judicial
board chairman (student), an SCA
representative (student), dean of
students, academic dean or his
representative, the arts dean of the
student concerned, and a faculty
representative (all voting members), the
judicial board usually directs its energies
to such cases as violations of financial
aid contracts, plagiarism, vandalism,
possession of dope, and an occasional
fisticuff or two (if ever deemed serious
enough).
Brought before the board, a student
will quietly sit and hear the charges
brought (against him) by a student af
fairs staff member. Soon after, the
defendent will present his case,
thereafter answering what often turn out
to be rather embarrassing questions.
Embarrassing, that is, if the seamy story
of the student affairs person, and the
likely story of the obviously not-to-
careful student are diametrically op
posed.
Often I have sat while a “trial” was in
progress wondering why a student would
not have been more careful in his private
or publicly illict dealings. While at other
times I could swear that the plaintiff
must possess one of the Tolkien
Numenorian palantirs in order to see into
the dorm rooms of suspects and share in
their goings-on.
Although the board has evoked certain
fear in the hearts of some individuals
(mainly guilty individuals) one would be
pleasantly surprised at the blatant at
tempts on the part of the board members
to look out for the welfare of the student
involved, which more often than not
surpass by far the call of duty.
My saying this while serving on the
board might be interpreted as selling my
own stock, but I am constantly amazed
that not only the dean of the student in
volved (who, if the student is extremely
talented graces that student with what
might not be a desired but certainly a
pronounced super-interest) but also the
academic department and student af-
resignation on the part of the student
prior to the sentencing) all this occurring
in the meeting; a singularly unpleasant
business.
As things now stand, most cases
brought before the judicial board are
those of male high school students
charged either with “possession” or
“late hours”, or worst of all in the eyes of
many on the board, vandalism. When
fairs staff genuinely try to help the
student to resolve the problem with a
minimum amount of embarrassement
and an optimum level of good judgment ■
One cannot say, however, that the
board goes out of its way for those who
enter the meeting more plagued with
vigilance than with best intentions for
cooperation. While serving I have seen
numerous suspensions, probationed
suspensions, and a single expulsion (the
latter resulted in an attempted
sentences, if any, are passed down after
a usually trying meeting, one wishes to
add to the sentence a mandatory Dale
Carnegie course in “How Not to Be
Ungrateful.” For little do the guilty
accept or even realize that for some
charges, such as possession of marijuana
or other drugs, the charges COULD
HAVE BEEN LEVIED by local or even
outside police instead of the judicial
board, liie board’s function is to take
these cases for the students’ protection so
that they will not be put in the hands of
other authority. The question then is
clear: which is worse - Dean Hyatt or two
or three big, burly, mean SBI agents in
one’s room who do not at all “compri”
the problems of the NCSA student.
If there is one thing that this particular
member of the board would wish, it is
that there would be a more effective
means of dealing with the problems one
sees as “disciplinary.” For instance, if a
student puts a cigarette out in one of his
respective teachers’ respective eyeballs,
one might refer to this problem as
“disciplinary” as opposed to one of “bad
judgment”, in which case the student in
this instance would probably be a moron;
or a “crime of passion”, something most
students here are thankfully incapable of
with their instructors.
In these cases the board finds itself
faced with a student wholly incapable of
cooperation, and sadly enough, incapable
of looking out for his own well-being. The
“crime” is usually that the student needs
a great deal of attention, which at this
point in his or her life, is difficult for a
lx)ard of this kind to deal with in the very
important, very delicate manner which
is called for. So, the Board has the
authority to send 'students to persoral
councilors, whereupon if they refuse,
they will promptly be asked to leave
school in most cases. In any event, the
dilemma of the student with the
disciplinary problem has a long way to ;o
before being solved.
Certainly in dealing with individu^’ls
as such, and in dealing with each cast'
a separate one (the board NEVKK Ic’ s
a judgment based on precedt'i )
numerous questions of what is best r
the student arise. But for the greater p; : t
by far, the judicial board hands d( n
judgments fairly to those students v\ o
merely respect the board, and ni ;t
importantly, care about themselves.
Shawn Nelson is a drama senior servhig
as SCA representative on the judicial
board.
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