"The Carolina community cares deeply about all of our students, including both students in this specific matter," UNC chancellor Holden Thorpe said in a statement released late Tuesday. "If we are to achieve the ultimate goal of eliminating sexual assault and violence from this campus, we must all work together.?
The university released its own statement after several media outlets (including Yahoo! News) reported that Landen Gambill?a sophomore who last spring reported being raped by a student she says is still on the school's Chapel Hill campus?was recently notified of the charge by the UNC Honor Court.
If found guilty, Gambill faces a range of sanctions, including probation, suspension or even expulsion.
Last month, a group of current and former UNC students including Gambill and Melinda Manning?the school's former assistant dean of students?filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, alleging that school officials had pressured Manning into underreporting sex offense cases.
The University?s Honor System has been the subject of Internet commentary and media attention and some of its student members have received threats to their personal safety. Sexual assault evokes passionate responses and concerns. But it is important, particularly in a higher education community, to avoid judgment based upon speculation.
Here are facts. This University works hard to encourage students to come forward and report instances of sexual violence. No student has ever been disciplined for reporting a sexual assault or any Honor Code violation. Further, no University administrator filed or encouraged the filing of charges in this case; there is no retaliation by the University.
Because of concern for our students and their privacy we cannot discuss specifics of this or any student Honor Court case. This includes allegations involving a student who has made a claim about a fellow student.
The University has a long and cherished tradition of student government, led by students for the benefits and welfare of students. We can tell you that the Student Attorneys General, and for many years have had, the authority to decide which cases to consider independent of administrators. Further, administrators may not encourage or prevent the Student Attorneys General from filing charges. When a member of the University community reports an Honor Code violation, the Student Attorneys General determine if the evidence warrants a hearing before the Honor Court under campus policies and procedures. In deciding to charge a student with an alleged violation, the Student Attorneys General carefully consider all available evidence. Because of faculty interest in strengthening the Honor System process, the University established?with Chancellor Thorp?s support?a faculty advisory committee to be available to the Student Attorneys General for consultation in difficult cases.
Throughout a student?s involvement with the student-led Honor System, an accused student receives a number of procedural rights, including the presumption of innocence, the presentation of evidence, and a fair and impartial hearing. After the hearing, if a student is found guilty of the charge, sanctioning decisions are made by the Honor Court after a thorough consideration of all of the evidence.
The Student Attorneys General, who have been involved with the Honor System for over two years, have been trained on making appropriate charge decisions in accordance with University procedures. We are confident in our students? professionalism and commitment.
In January, the University retained Gina Smith, a nationally recognized lawyer and consultant on sexual misconduct issues, to help guide an open and transparent conversation about how the issue of sexual assault affects the campus and culture that is focusing on education and engagement. Smith, a former prosecutor, educator and consultant, has guided other campuses including Amherst on issues related to handling sexual assault complaints.
The work ahead of us is hard and the responsibility to get it right is daunting. We are committed to eliminating sexual assault and violence from our community. We encourage you to visit our website (http://campusconversation.web.unc.edu/) and to participate in the University?s efforts to engage students, faculty, staff and alumni on these issues.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/unc-sexual-assault-023112197.html
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Ahead of its Mobile World Congress press conference today, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop sat down with TechCrunch to talk about the company's dual OS strategy, expanding product portfolio and the evolving competitive landscape of smartphones and smart devices.
Do you want know whether cannibalism existed amongst Tyrannosaurus Rexes or whether specific viruses contribute to lung cancer risk? Better yet, do you want to be part of making this research happen faster? A Y Combinator-backed startup called Microryza is positioning itself as a “Kickstarter” for science research. The idea for Microryza sprouted when Cindy Wu, then an undergraduate at University of Washington, found that she had little hope of getting funding for studying a potential anthrax therapeutic. She had discovered it after helping to create a video game that let regular people fold and create virtual enzymes. They came up with 87 different mutants that summer through the video game, and found that one could potentially treat anthrax infections after winning an MIT based synthetic biology competition. But her professor at the time was skeptical that she could get funding to study it further. “He told me it was a small, early-stage idea and that because I was an undergraduate, I couldn’t get an NIH (National Institutes of Health) or NSF (National Science Foundation) grant,” she said. But he then let her pitch at a lab meeting and funneled money from another existing lab grant into her work. “I was so lucky. But I realized there are so many other undergraduates, graduate students and faculty members that would never be able to get funding,” she said. “I talked to 100 different scientists and found that all of them had high-risk ideas, but they never wrote proposals because they didn’t think it would go through.” So last year, she and co-founder Denny Luan launched Microryza. They work with five or six universities including the University of Washington, USC and UC Santa Cruz. They vet every single researcher on the platform. Luan said Microryza looks for three things: 1) Is the researcher who they say they are? 2) Is the proposal fundamentally new research? 3) Is the researcher capable of carrying out the project? They also work with the researchers to make sure there’s a lasting connection with their backers long after they receive funding. This is the hard part with science-focused Kickstarter concepts (and Microryza isn’t the only one), because research can take years before backers see conclusive results. There have been a few attempt with sites like Petridish, which launched last year and appears to have more than 30 completed projects. Luan and Wu worked on building an information
