Response

In last week’s issue of the Papyrus, we (the Papyrus staff) printed a response written by Chris Noyes exclaiming over an article I had written to address problems with Student Development.  In addition to clarifying my previous article, I will respond to Mr. Noyes’s arguments.

           Students want Student Development to be consistent in their disciplinary actions.  Different students seem to receive different punishments for the same offenses.. The current policies set in place regarding disciplinary issues on campus in reference to the lifestyle statement do not provide adequate standards for positions on discipline by either students or staff. I understand that the current system is set up around the concept of grace and trying to reform instead of punish, but introducing too much grace into a disciplinary system leads to unfair treatment of those students who do get punished.

           I stated in my previous article that I was not annoyed with the personnel of Student Development, and that I didn’t “intend this article to be unfair, unjust, or in anyway overtly hurtful to the people involved in student development. . .Please don’t misunderstand my meaning in critiquing student development.” I apologize for the hurt I may have caused some Student Development personnel in critiquing the part of the institution they work for; I thought I had made it clear that it is a problem with the system, not the personnel.

           I also want to state that I felt qualified to write the article because I have been involved with Student Development for the past few years, not because I, personally, have been injured by it. My time as GCSA President made me aware of what students deal with on the campus and where they feel the most betrayed by the institution. I’ve been wrestling with my thoughts on the judicial system at GC for the past few years and have said almost nothing to help my fellow students.

           Now that I have, hopefully, made my thesis clear regarding my previous article I would like to address the points where Mr. Noyes failed to understand my meaning. His first paragraph makes it seem as if I were discussing drinking, when in fact, I only gave one example regarding drinking and it was merely an illustration.  I also never mentioned whether I agree with the Lifestyle Statement or not. The intent of my article was to speak of the judicial system of GC, not give a value judgment of the Lifestyle statement.  My personal opinion of the Lifestyle Statement is irrelevant to this argument.

           Mr. Noyes used sarcasm to present my idea of clear guidelines as a ridiculous notion. Many judicial systems have sentencing guidelines.  The reason for this is that they help create constancy of treatment, regardless of the particular acting authority's unavoidable biases.  Not one person is completely fair and virtuous, nor do people understand every other person fully.  That’s why society generally considers it a good idea to have some pretty well-defined ranges for a particular transgression’s consequences – it helps mediate the damage by judicial imperfection. Mr. Noyes claimed that guidelines “don’t contribute to the moral development of students” and that it’s “obvious” why we don’t have these guidelines. But it is not obvious. If the institution could force every student to be mature and intelligent; then there wouldn’t be any need for a disciplinary system. Also, Mr. Noyes comments later in his article that I had not taken into account the full history and context of judicial systems. I am certain that both Mr. Noyes and I had imprecise notions of what hearsay means in a criminal court. Since this is a complex issue, perhaps it is better for us both to drop it.

           I also would like to point out that I do agree that students should be punished.  I wrote, “I am also definitely not saying that students shouldn’t be punished for breaking the lifestyle statement.” I am not refuting the idea of punishment; in fact, I believe quite the opposite.  Students sign the Lifestyle Statement. They are under contract to keep their word; if they break the contract, the institution may choose to terminate the contract. The institution chooses not to terminate contracts quite often.  This is the proper place for grace in a disciplinary system.  Also, if students and the institution had a few rules of order in place; perhaps punishment could be given in a fair and consistent manner.

           In Mr. Noyes’s last lines of his article he chose to refer to my action of quoting the walls of the Holocaust Museum as a “gross misapplication and morally reprehensible.” If I had meant what Mr. Noyes thought I had meant, then perhaps I can see how this might be justifiably offensive.  Even if I had been so offensive, would he not have done better to understand what I had meant by the quote before submitting such a horrible and hurtful piece of writing?  This was a flippant and irresponsible use of language. I have expressed above my regret regarding my inaction at correcting the brokenness of the system while I was president of the student body.  I intended for the quote to refer to me as the bystander.  I still believe the quote currently applies to many such examples as mine. I was not defending students who break the lifestyle statement but was calling myself a person who has sat back and watched the unfairness surrounding a campus and students that I care about.  Only for my inaction could Mr. Noyes perhaps call me “morally reprehensible.”

I have shared my opinion on what I believe Greenville College could be doing better. I also encourage more responses to my actual arguments. Isn’t that the joy of attending college? To learn, argue, banter, discuss in a professional and academic manner: that is what higher learning is truly about. 

Response to my article in the Papyrus

I am constantly surprised by the numerous articles concerning the consumption of frosty libations (drinking alcohol). When I was a student, I became of legal age during the last week of my junior year; so I really only had 12 months to grapple with the temptation of breaking the lifestyle statement in that regard (if we are to leave out breaking the civil law as an understood assumption).  Perhaps others are not as lucky as I and had birthdays earlier in the school year or didn’t begin their college education right out of high school. 

Now this isn’t to say that I didn’t break the lifestyle statement in other regards.  I, myself, am a product of a Personal Growth Initiative (contract, or whatever they are calling it these days).  In the waning weeks of my sophomore year, I was “convicted” of student misconduct and assigned to an allotment of community service and multiple sessions of counseling.  At the time, I harbored the same thoughts which Katie Giesbrecht shared in her article “The Good, the Bad, and Student Development.”  I thought the punishment for my “crime” to be inconsistent with what I perceived to be lesser punishments for greater crimes committed by others.  (Incidentally, I thought I was being punished to a greater extent than those who were caught drinking.)  There were some among the faculty and administration who wanted me expelled from the college.  Luckily, because of my self-initiated “surrender,” I was dealt with kindly.  However, unlike Ms. Giesbrecht, by the end of my tenure as a GC student, I came to appreciate – or at least understand – the difficult work of student development.

There were several issues concerning last week’s op/ed article that I’d like to address.  First, let us consider the “clear guidelines” requested by Ms. Giesbrecht.  She seems to suggest that students should be informed beforehand (perhaps with some kind of chart or grid?) as to what infractions incur what punishments.  Considerations might be: What was the offense committed?  What was the severity of the offense?  What was the frequency of the offense?  Through a simple calculus, students would then be able to determine what punishment they were willing to deal with to guide their misconduct.  Since this does not contribute to the moral development of individuals, I think it is fairly obvious why this is not a feasible student development practice.

Secondly, I think her understanding of the role of grace is imprecise.  She states: “We want to mix grace and discipline, but I’m not sure it works” and “Students have the expectation of grace in the current system; that is why students are offended when they aren’t offered it.”  I’ll admit balancing grace and discipline is difficult.  But this is precisely the Christian life.  We live under a state of grace thanks to the saving work of Jesus Christ; but we still must live disciplined lives, not giving ourselves over to libertinism, thinking that since we are covered by grace, we can do whatever we want.  As Paul writes in his correspondence to the Romans, “should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means!  Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?  By no means!”

Finally, Ms. Giesbrecht fails on the same grounds with which she attempts to indict the student development personnel.  Unless she was present as the proverbial “fly on the wall,” there is no way she can prove that the events transpired in accordance with the “harsh tactics” and “scared confession” as claimed.  She must be relying on the testimony of someone else.  Yet, she states: “If students deny that they were smoking, drinking, swearing, using drugs, etc. can we really punish people for hearsay and conjecture?  Can we really take one person’s word against another?”  To answer her simply: yes.  This is what takes place in courts of justice every day.  I can’t simply deny committing a crime (no matter how grave or inconsequential) and expect to get off on the “my word against his” defense. By saying that the practice of hearing testimony and weighing evidence is an injustice or is by some means unethical, Ms. Giesbrecht contradicts at least the 200 years of American juridical tradition, let alone the thousands of years of similar practices implemented by many cultures. 

In my estimation, Ms. Giesbrecht never arrives at the “truths” she claims to uncover, nor does she accurately articulate precisely what she means by “unethical.”  Perhaps the real issue of the article is the “annoyance” she feels toward the student development personnel.  If that is the case, then I must refer her to Jakob Lewis’s article from the October 18 issue of the Papyrus.  I love Greenville College, and I think it is a wonderful community.  But I can’t figure out what is so great about it that students would be willing to lie and claim to be willing to be held accountable for their actions.  Or even if they are not lying and from the outset truly desire such accountability, why are they so shocked when they are called to account?

I was deeply offended by the final quote with which she attempts to justify her diatribe.  This would be an appropriate quote for an article concerning our inaction in regard to any number of oppressed peoples; but to affix it to an article concerning the treatment of students who violate accepted codes of conduct is both a gross misapplication and morally reprehensible.

morally reprehensible.

First opinions article for the Papyrus

The Good, the Bad, and Student Development

Katie Giesbrecht

200306114@panthers.greenville.edu

            I’ve worked CSO, been a student assistant, was GCSA Student Body President my junior year, Editor-in-Chief of the Papyrus first semester my senior year, and other miscellaneous jobs with the newspaper and the yearbook. I was a triple major until the end of my junior year, which is the cause of my collegiate longevity. One could say that I am a bit of an overachiever.

I’m writing today to discuss the issues, annoyances, and perhaps even unethical behavior, I seem to be witnessing with a certain aspect of the college: student development. I don’t intend this article to be unfair, unjust, or in anyway overtly hurtful to the people involved in student development; but I do want to share some truths that I have witnessed regarding our college.

The issue that I’m currently struggling with, the issue that has always been an annoyance and injustice in the minds of students is our college’s disciplinary actions. 97% of the time, we are not privy to the intimate situations in which students find themselves at the mercy of disciplinary actions, but that other 3% of the time, either we, or one of our friends, have to face up to the consequences of our actions.  

            First, there needs to be some clear guidelines about how student development should handle disciplinary action regarding students. Specifics for cases of the certain “misactions” of students according to which part of the lifestyle statement they break. For instance, it would be easier for students to know how they were going to be treated if they, say, drank one alcoholic beverage and were caught, as say, a student who became drunk and crashed their car into a light pole. Certain actions deserve certain punishments and it would be fairer to students to have at least a partial idea of what consequence they would face regarding their actions. With the current system, a student is either punished by a few insubstantial hours of community service, or the student is punished by getting booted out of upper division housing, or a student is sent off with a warning and wrist slap, all for the same offense.

            Regarding the current system of governance, I realize that in our student handbooks there is a policy on student conduct and disciplinary action. However, students tend (when they actually read the handbook) to notice that while it looks pretty on paper, in practice perhaps it doesn’t work. We want to mix grace and discipline, but I’m not sure it works. Students want the same grace as every other student; some students are offered grace and some are not offered as much grace as other students. For that matter, how do you systematize grace? Isn’t grace supposed to be a gift? Is it an unconditional gift? Also, isn’t grace, in order to be a gift, completely unexpected? Students have the expectation of grace in the current system; that is why students are offended when they aren’t offered it. Instead, we have a disciplinary system that rewards or punishes depending upon your apparent remorse or your adherence with the system itself.

Please don’t misunderstand my meaning in critiquing student development. I’m not trying to be one of those students who just rants and raves against the institution purely because I had a friend who got into trouble for breaking the lifestyle statement. As I said above, I’ve been fairly intimate in the realm of student development and I feel the need to point out injustices and the flawed system with which we are currently running things. I am also definitely not saying that students shouldn’t be punished for breaking the lifestyle statement. We all know what we are getting into when we come to this college.

Second, as a student who has been intimately connected with student development and has had many an RC friend, I want to make it known that students find the idea of an RC to be a conflicted one. How can a person who is supposed to be your friend, mentor, and spiritual guide also be the student police force on campus? How do RCs handle being so conflicted and pained? Students who are not RCs are supposed to want to talk to their RCs if they are say, struggle with an addiction to pornography or marijuana. However, if that student goes to their RC, it is an RC obligation to inform the institution, making it hard for everyone involved. Again, the current system is in need of a change.

Lastly, I want to speak to the injustice I have witnessed meshing the RC as police and student development’s take on disciplinary action. A situation in which I was only peripherally involved occurred a few weeks ago, in which a freshman was invited to hang out with a group of seniors and non-students. It was rumored there had been alcohol involved during this time and so when the freshman arrived back to their dorm room that night, his RC was waiting for him. Now, if students had been drinking, then I think they should come up against a certain amount of disciplinary action, however, the way in which the “truth” was obtained from the freshman was perhaps unethical. Seeing as how members of student development claimed they knew who was at the apartment, they could have easily called everyone in and questioned the suspect individuals. However, this did not happen. Instead, members of student development resorted to harsh tactics and, it could be said, scared a confession out of this freshman individual. Now, I realize that student development really cannot prove that students drink unless they crash their car, get pulled over, or admit to drinking and that perhaps the only way to “prove” students were breaking the lifestyle statement is to catch them telling their friends about it. I actually don’t mind that so much. However, if students deny that they were smoking, drinking, swearing, using drugs, etc. can we really punish people for hearsay and conjecture? Can we really take one persons word against another? Can we really force confessions out of the younger students because they are scared of getting into trouble? It seems unethical, and I for one, won’t stand for it.

There are many things that I believe student development is doing well, but also, if I did not take the time to bring issues like this to their attention, I would consider my schooling here to be unimportant and my loyalty to my college to be meaningless and empty. I care about the students of this campus and I want to check those things that need to be checked. I shall leave you with this quote from my visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. last Christmas break:

“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”