The Ad Board

WHEN Dean Glimp's special committee to study the Administrative Board meets later this month, it will have a chance to make some long-needed changes. The Ad Board needs streamlining. Routine matters--like approving extensions on papers--now take up far too much of its time; the Registrar's office could handle these more efficiently.

Since the board has few formal operating rules, it needs in addition to examine the precedents that have grown in the four years since the last major overhaul.

The Board would do well to become more responsive to the general currents of student thought. Dean Glimp's proposal that his committee take up suggestions from the HUC and the Advisory Council is encouraging. In light of the draft, for example, the board might reconsider its present strict policies on readmission.

But the Board's most important function is as a college disciplinary body, and this is where the new committee has to be careful. The Board's status as a private review body should not be changed.

Although the Ad Board is responsible for dealing out all College punishment--ranging from Admonitions to Expungements--few students understand its operation until they meet it personally. The Board makes no pretense of being a fact-finding body. It is not a legal tribunal. By the time a case gets to the Board, guilt is no longer in question.

IT is the Board's job to investigate the circumstances of the offense and decide only what kind of punishment to give. The deans and tutors on the Board are usually merciful; they are not anxious to expel students. Their job usually consists of searching for mitigating circumstances that will let them reduce the penalties.

Ever since the Board's seemingly-erratic punishment of Dow demonstrators, however, students have pressed to change the Ad Board into a miniature legal court. Students and administrators would testify and the Board's task would be to determine guilt.

This would be a serious mistake. Although it would lend an air of "justice" to the Board's proceedings, its actual effect would be to limit the Board's flexibility.

Several times in the last four years the Board has let dissatisfied students testify before special subcommittees. In each case, the result was the same: the trial-court atmosphere forced the board to expose details they otherwise could have overlooked, and the student's guilt became so blatantly obvious that they had no choice but to impose the full penalties. The same thing happening on a larger scale would not be desirable.

Paternalism is not always a good administrative policy. Someday the Ad Board's paternalism may become dangerous--but right now it looks better than any alternative.