Investigation Procedures Post-Transformation

Two Honor Counsel will be assigned to investigate each case. One Honor Advisor will be assigned to assist the Investigated Student and another Advisor will be assigned to assist the Community, including the Reporter.

At the beginning of an investigation, the Advisor for the Community will contact the reporter and explain the role of the Advisor and the investigation process and answer any questions from the reporter. The Advisor should also ask the reporter if any additional witnesses should be contacted by the investigators. This will allow all support officers to have a clearer idea of when to conduct the interview with the student. A face-to-face meeting with the reporter is only required if the reporter so desires. The Investigating Counsel will then meet with the reporter (and if requested by the reporter, the Advisor for the Community) to conduct a preliminary interview.

The Investigating Counsel will then conduct interviews with other relevant witnesses suggested by the reporter. When scheduling an interview, the Counsel should provide the witnesses with contact information for the Advisor for the Community, who should be available as a resource to these witnesses.

When interviews with all Community witnesses have been scheduled and are close to completion, the Advisor for the Investigated Student should contact the student to inform him of the investigation. This may be nearly immediately after the initial contact with the reporter or a few days later, depending on the number of additional witnesses to interview. The Advisor should answer any and all questions that the student has and explain the investigation process, including details about the interview, especially the rights of the Investigated Student at the interview.

Counsel will then schedule an interview with the student and his Advisor and compile all interviews into a packet that will be provided to the student for the response. The Counsel will conduct the initial interview, allowing the student to review it privately with his advisor, before printing it out and having the student sign and initial the statement.

After this, the student should be provided with the testimony of the other witnesses, and given the opportunity to review the evidence with his Advisor. When the student is ready, he should prepare a statement responding to any points of contention in the other witnesses’ statements. The format of this response should be a free-from essay written by the student. This will be included with the Investigative Log.

The Counsel will then interview any other witnesses suggested by the Investigated Student. These witnesses will not necessarily be given the opportunity to provide response statements, though the investigators may schedule follow-up interviews if required.

Counsel will then leave a copy of the I-Log with the Investigation Coordinator assigned to the case to review all the evidence and testimony. They should draw up a list of topics of further exploration that they need to review with other witnesses. The IC should review these topics and suggest any additional areas of inquiry that would be helpful to the Investigative Panel.

The Counsel will then provide the reporter and the Advisor for the Community with the investigated student’s statement. The reporter will be given the opportunity to provide a statement to the investigators responding to the student’s initial interview. The investigators may also pose additional questions to the reporter in light of the student’s testimony.

If, after discussion with the IC, Counsel need to conduct additional questioning with witnesses, they should conduct a follow up interview with any witnesses deemed necessary to resolving disputed factual contentions.

Counsel will then compile the I-Log and deliver it to the Vice Chair for Investigations.